Abigail
Echo-Hawk

POSITION/ORGANIZATION:
Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute

TRIBAL AFFILIATIONS:
Pawnee Nation

Abigail Echo-Hawk, MA (Pawnee), was born in the heart of Alaska where she was raised in the traditional values of giving, respect for all, and love. Ms. Echo-Hawk currently serves as the Director of the Urban Indian Health Institute, and the Chief Research Officer at the Seattle Indian Health Board. Her work incorporates these core principles and activities: engagement and participation of community partners; research and evaluation on health, healthcare, and other community priorities; education, training, and capacity-building for Native people, including researchers, students,

and communities; infrastructure development; technical assistance; and sharing results in a way that recognizes and respects the unique cultural contexts of American Indian and Alaska Native people. In these roles she also works with American Indian and Alaska Native tribes and organizations to identify health research priorities and with health researchers to ensure research is done in a manner that respects tribal sovereignty and is culturally appropriate.

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I always think about the data as story, and each person who contributed to that data as storytellers. What is our responsibility to the story and our responsibility to the storyteller? Those are all indigenous concepts, that we always care for our storytellers, and we always have a responsibility to our stories.
Abigail Echo-Hawk