Assistant Professor
School of Nursing
Hometown: Keshena, WI
Angela Fernandez, PhD, MPH, LCSW, joins the School as an Assistant Professor and member of the campus Native American Environment, Health, and Community faculty cluster. A member of the Menominee Nation of Wisconsin, her research program is built on over two decades of combined national and international social work and public health research, practice, teaching, and service experience with Indigenous, Latinx, and other marginalized communities in inpatient and outpatient health care settings, academic settings, non-profit organizations, and the Peace Corps. As a clinician, she has worked with interprofessional teams in inpatient and outpatient care, and holds clinical social work licenses in the states of Wisconsin and Washington. As a prevention scientist, she examines the role of cultural practices and nature contact as protective factors in the prevention of chronic and co-occurring diseases (e.g. mental health, substance abuse, diabetes) among Indigenous peoples.
Talks:
“I went into the woods”: Native Health at the Nexus of Community & Environment
This talk profiles my journey from the reservation to the university and back again, and how I learned that Indigenous health is interconnected within Nature. I share what I learned about the responsibility we have to use our gifts in order to ensure that future generations can maintain this sacred interconnection with all our relatives on the planet.