Dr. Kelly Gonzales (PhD, MPH / she, her, hers) is the founder and Executive Director of the Indigenous Health Equity Institute. She is a citizen of the Cherokee Nation, mother to Wren and Caleb, community advocate and organizer, researcher, learner, and teacher. All of her work centers on the priorities and wisdom of the Native community. Dr. Gonzales completed her doctorate in public health and a two-year, and a two year research post-doctoral program within the University of Colorado’s’ Native Investigator Program housed within the Centers for American Indian and Alaskan Native Research. Her mentors are Native scholars and community leaders including, Dr. Spero Manson, Jillene Joseph, Abigail Echo Hawk, and Michelle Jacob. 

Dr. Gonzales has served Indian Country in a variety of roles, including building new regional and national programs within the Indian health care system for quality and comprehensive diabetes data while working at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board; supporting emerging Indigenous leaders including students and community health workers; helping to build a body of empirical science into the adverse impacts of racism to the health of Native peoples; organizing a community of practice and initiative to decolonize and Indigenize systems and structures of public health at the level of health data, research and policy. Additionally, she currently serves as a tenured associate professor within the Oregon Health Sciences-Portland State University joint School of Public Health. 

Dr. Gonzales also serves the community co-founding Oregons’ BIPOC Decolonizing Data Council, and participating on numerous boards and community advisory positions, including the state of Oregon Governors’ Racial Justice Council-Health Committee and Equity-Budget Committee; Oregon COVID Vaccination Advisory Board; the 2021-22 University Presidential Fellow of Portland State University, the Missing and Murdered Indigenous Women and Relatives Coalition of Portland, the Future Generations Collaborative, the 7Waters Canoe Family, and the Indigenous Food Sovereignty Initiative. Currently she serves on the Oregon Public Health Advisory Board and she created and implemented the nation's first undergraduate concentration on Indigenous health within an accredited School of Public Health.

Her work is available in peer-reviewed journals