NCRE Scholars Program

The Native Children’s Research Exchange (NCRE) brings together researchers studying child development from birth through emerging adulthood in Native communities. NCRE provides opportunities for the open exchange of information and ideas and for building collaborative relationships and disseminating knowledge about Native children’s development. Mentoring early career investigators and graduate students, particularly those who are American Indian, Alaska Native, or Native Hawaiian community members, is central to NCRE’s mission.

The NCRE Scholars Program provides career development support to early career investigators and late-stage graduate students interested in pursuing research on substance use and disorder and Native child and adolescent development. In the first eight years of this program (2012-2020), NCRE Scholars has included 19 Scholars in eight cohorts, including ten postdoctoral Scholars and nine graduate student Scholars. Early career investigators, including junior faculty, post-doctoral fellows, and late-stage doctoral students in psychology, sociology, public health, anthropology, education, or related disciplines are eligible to apply.

The NCRE Scholars program is supported by a grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (R25DA050645; Whitesell and Sarche, PIs).

The Society for Research in Child Development (SRCD) biennial meeting was held on March 23- 25th. We are excited to share there is now an Indigenous Caucus at SRCD! The SRCD Indigenous Caucus was established in 2022 to advance developmental research on Indigenous children, youth, and families; to advocate for increased attention to issues related to indigeneity in developmental science more broadly; and to support the development of Indigenous researchers and scholars within developmental science.   

We are thrilled to announce TRC and NCRE Scholars are on the founding steering committee: Michelle Sarche, Director/Principal Investigator of the Tribal Early Childhood Research Center (TRC) at University of Colorado, and two NCRE Scholars, Monica Tsethlikai, Associate Professor at the Sanford School of Social and Family Dynamics at Arizona State University, and Evan White, Associate Investigator at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa, Oklahoma.

>> Read more about the new Indigenous Caucus.