Meet Our Founder

Damian M. Chase-Begay, PhD, MS is Mandan and Arikara, and his family hails from the Fort Berthold Reservation in North Dakota. He is an Indigenous health researcher, implementation scientist, public health professional, and founder of American Indian Health Research & Evaluation, LLC (AIHRE). His work focuses on strengthening the ways research, evaluation, and implementation are conducted with and for Indigenous communities, with particular attention to Indigenous knowledge, relationships, governance, self-determination, and community-defined priorities.

Dr. Chase-Begay is an Associate Professor of Public & Indigenous Health in the University of Montana School of Public and Community Health. His research spans implementation science, Indigenous Research Methodologies, culturally grounded health interventions, and the implementation and sustainment of programs in Indigenous health settings. He is particularly interested in how conventional research and implementation approaches can be transformed—not simply adapted—to better reflect Indigenous ways of knowing, community governance, and the contexts in which Indigenous organizations operate.

His current research includes a career development award (K01) from the National Institute on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health focused on the development, cultural adaptation, and implementation of substance misuse prevention programming with Urban Indian health organizations in Montana. He is also a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Equity Scholar for Action, examining how Indigenous Research Methodologies are understood and applied within Western health research settings. His broader scholarship explores Indigenous implementation frameworks, implementation resilience, culturally grounded approaches to evidence, and Indigenous governance of research and data.

Dr. Chase-Begay brings more than two decades of experience across Tribal and Urban Indian health, public health, academia, and health systems. Before joining the University of Montana faculty, his leadership roles included serving as Executive Director of the National Council of Urban Indian Health, Executive Director of All Nations Health Center in Missoula, and Health Officer for Missoula County. These experiences inform an approach to research and consultation grounded not only in scholarship, but also in the realities of leading organizations, navigating health systems and policy environments, and translating evidence into practice.

Through AIHRE, Dr. Chase-Begay partners with Tribal Nations, Urban Indian organizations, health systems, universities, nonprofit organizations, and other partners to support research, evaluation, implementation, strategic planning, and organizational learning. Across these efforts, his work is guided by a central principle: Indigenous knowledge and community priorities belong at the center of the systems intended to improve Indigenous health.