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. We are now recruiting 4 Scholars to join Cohort 9, which will launch in September 2020. 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).
Featured Scholars
NCRE Scholar Helen Russette
Helen Russette is a current NCRE Scholar and a doctoral candidate at the University of Montana. During the COVID-19 outbreak, Helen had the opportunity to measure one of her greenspace exposure variables as part of a separate study of COVID-19 mortality risk. Her study, “Greenspace exposure and COVID-19 mortality in the United States: January–July 2020,” was recently published in Environmental Research. Results indicated a dose-response association between increasing deciles of greenspace exposure and reduced risk of COVID-19 mortality across the conterminous United States. Counties with a higher prevalence of older age residents, lower education attainment, Native Americans, Black Americans, and housing overcrowding were significantly associated with increased risk of COVID-19 mortality whereas Medicaid coverage showed a significantly reduced risk. Congratulations on this important and timely contribution to the literature Helen!