Association of Minnesota Public Educational Radio Stations

Dr. Melissa Blind: Working to Improve Indigenous Health and Dementia Research

Native Lights

Melissa Blind

Native Lights is a weekly, half-hour radio program hosted by Mille Lacs Band of Ojibwe members and siblings, Leah Lemm and Cole Premo. Native Lights is a space for people in Native communities around Mni Sota Mkoce — a.k.a. Minnesota — to tell their stories about finding their gifts and sharing them with the community.

Melissa Blind is Cree from George Gordon’s First Nation in Saskatchewan. She earned her PhD in American Indian Studies from the University of Arizona.  Melissa has over a decade of experience working with Indigenous communities in Indigenous health and dementia research.

As the current Senior Research Associate on the Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team at the University of Minnesota, Duluth campus, Melissa is focused on collaborative research to improve dementia outcomes in Indigenous and rural communities.

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