Michele Suina

Michele Suina, PhD, is from Cochiti Pueblo and is the Program Director for the Good Health and Wellness in Indian Country Program at the Albuquerque Area Southwest Tribal Epidemiology Center. Her upbringing in Cochiti prepared her for a career in public health where she learned that health is more than going to the local Indian Health Service clinic and that Pueblo health is connected to a Pueblo way of life that supports spiritual, emotional, mental, social, and physical well-being. With nearly 20 years of experience as a health educator she chose this career path to contribute to the vitality of Indigenous peoples and to influence western approaches to public health for Native Americans so they can realize their own self-defined health aspirations. In 2015, Michele graduated from Arizona State University School of Social Transformation with the first Pueblo PhD Justice Studies cohort. Her dissertation focused on understanding the multiple factors that impact research with Pueblo people today and considerations for more appropriate research from a Pueblo Indian standpoint. Michele is a mother to a daughter named Sydney.