2022 Northern Lights Psychology Conference

The 2022 Northern Lights Conference will be held in-person on Friday, November 4^th, 2022.

8 a.m. - 5 p.m. |  UND Memorial Union (Grand Ballroom - Rm. 214)

The conference is open to community members, faculty, and students. Attendees can enroll during the morning of the conference.

The conference is being sponsored by UND’s department of Psychology and will be free to all, although attendees with be encouraged to make a donation to our graduate student research scholarship fund. CEUs will also be made available for some conference programming.

Keynote Speaker

Dr. Evan White

Dr. Evan White is a Principal Investigator and Director of Native American Research and the Electroencephalography Core at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research. The focus of his work is employing clinical cultural neuroscience to improve mental health outcomes among American Indians. Dr. White’s laboratory aims to establish and advance neuroscientific understanding of cultural factors that are protective against poor mental health among American Indians utilizing a strength-based framework. A focus of this research is implementing multi-modal neuroscience and psychophysiology with a particular emphasis in electroencephalography/event-related potentials. The goal of Dr. White's reasearch is to integrate clinical and cultural neuroscience to identify modifiable factors as candidate treatment targets for mental health intervention and prevention. 

Dr. White’s research has received extramural funding from National Institute of Minority Health and Health Disparities (K99MD015736), National Institute of General Medical Sciences (5P20GM121312-04, 8737; PI: Paulus) and National Institute on Drug Abuse (R25DA050645, PIs: Whitesell & Sarche). He has co-authored a number of high impact research publications. 

Dr. White was born and raised in Tulsa, Oklahoma. He is an enrolled member of the Absentee Shawnee Tribe of Oklahoma. He belongs to the Shawnee Chapter of the Native American Church of Oklahoma and the Whiteoak Shawnee Ceremonial Grounds.

Keynote Title

Neurocognitive mechanisms and mental health disparities in American Indian populations: Toward clinical-cultural neuroscience.

Abstract

American Indians (AI) have faced many historical and societal challenges and risk related social determinates of health (SDH; e.g., historical trauma, discrimination, cultural disenfranchisement) that contribute to disproportionately higher rates of substance use and a variety of mental health conditions (anxiety, depression, PTSD, suicide). Addressing these disparities necessitates a scientifically rigorous understanding of brain mechanisms of traditional culture and its potential role in mental health treatment. Importantly, AI communities have suffered from a history of inappropriate, exploitative, and harmful research practices; additionally, research harms in AI populations extend beyond individual participants to communities they represent. In advancing mental health disparity research it is critical to employ methods that center input and well-being of communities. Conceptualizing traditional cultural engagement as protective social determinants of health will support a community centered approach to informing precision medicine interventions and clinical cultural neuroscience research for AIs. This presentation will 1) review a series of empirical investigations examining the utility of neurocognitive mechanisms in understanding mental health and substance use difficulties among a heterogenous sample of urban AI adults 2) offer a framework for clinical-cultural neuroscience as a way forward in addressing mental health disparities 3) implications and recommendations for the intersection of large-scale open access datasets and appropriate research conduct in AI populations.

Tentative Conference Schedule 

Subject to change.

All events will be held in several conference spaces of the Grand Ballroom (Room 214) on the 2nd floor of the NEW Memorial Union.  A detailed schedule and conference program will be available approximately one week before the conference. 

Friday, November 4th, 2022