Congrats to HELI alum Dr. Vernon Grant!

Multiple congratulations are in order for HELI 2015 alum Dr. Vernon Grant!

Dr. Vernon Grant (Blackfeet Nation) was appointed as an Assistant Research Professor in the Center for American Indian and Rural Health Equity (CAIHRE) at Montana State University in January 2018 after finishing his T-32 Primary Care Research Fellowship with the UW-Madison Department of Family Medicine & Community Health.

Dr. Grant was also selected for the NRMN Proposal Preparation Program and was a part of the Salt Lake Cohort. Following the NRMN program, Dr. Grant submitted his K01 to the National Heart, Lung, and Blood Institute at NIH. His K proposal builds upon preliminary data collected that found Blackfeet children in grades 6-8 sleep on average 7.5 hours per night during the weekday. The K01 will be two phases: In Phase I they will interview elders in the community and ask them about traditional Blackfeet bed time routines prior to the reservation/white contact era. They will also interview families to identify current sleep strategies that are working for children to get adequate sleep. In Phase II, they plan to use this information to develop a culturally appropriate 9 week sleep intervention. Families will be recruited and randomized to the intervention or a control. The intervention will be delivered through text message and Facebook messages from the information provided by elders.

While completing his postdoctoral work at UW-Madison, Dr. Grant was the recipient of 2016 AHEAD Pilot funds for his project ‘Association between objectively measured physical activity, sleep, and obesity in urban American Indian children.’ At Montana State, Dr. Grant works with former CCHE Director & HELI Faculty Dr. Alexandra Adams

Congratulations to Dr. Grant for all of this great progress in your research career! The trajectory is clear and we cannot wait to see what comes next for you.