Faculty & Staff

Bio

Jeffrey Adams, MD, is faculty at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, where he directs a medical student course/clerkship and instructs third- and fourth-year medical student workshops. He also practices emergency medicine at Essentia Health St. Mary's Medical Center.

Bio

Dr. al'Absi is a professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health, and directs the Duluth Global Health Research Institute. He holds the Max E. and Mary LaDue Pickworth Chair. Al'Absi has been honored with several awards, including the ABMR Neal E. Miller Award and American Psychosomatic Society Herbert Weiner Early Career Award. He is a fellow of the Association for Psychological Sciences; has served in leadership positions within several scientific organizations and on several NIH panels; and is associate editor for Psychophysiology and on the editorial board of the Annals of Behavioral Medicine.

Clinical Summary

Psychobiology of stress; pain; addiction

Bio

I am a licensed psychologist with training in community and clinical psychology. My clinical interests include individual and family therapy, and assessment. Current work is in the implementation and testing of multilevel health promotion interventions in American Indian/Alaska Native rural communities.

Research Summary

My research focuses on ways to enhance the capacities of American Indian/Alaska Native communities to promote their own health and well-being. My current emphasis is youth development and health as part of a long-term 25-year collaboration with rural Alaska Native communities. This collaboration has documented culture-based strategies for youth suicide and alcohol misuse prevention and is now testing their effectiveness. The Qungasvik (toolbox) intervention is a strength-based, community-directed and community-staffed approach that creates protective experiences to buffer risk factors and promote well-being. The second strand of this work is documenting and describing the role of community-level protective mechanisms, sometimes called cultural continuity, in the low suicide rates of certain communities within high suicide impacted regions of rural Alaska. A third effort seeks to understand cultural and spiritual factors individuals in Pacific Northwest and Northern Minnesota tribal communities are using in their recovery from opioid use. All these studies share focus at the intersection of culture, resistance, and health.Research methods for this work include interview approaches to understanding cultural processes in health and well-being, and collaborative coding and interpretive analyses of these qualitative data with Indigenous community members. Quantitative approaches draw on my interests in classical and modern measurement theory, particularly in application with cultural distinctiveness, contemporary approaches to modeling for testing theory and intervention effectiveness, with particular focus on small population and small sample research, and recent developments in multilevel and Bayesian analysis approaches.Driving all these efforts is an applied focus in intervention science. Recent work has concentrated on protective factors frameworks. As an alternative to the risk and deficit models, this framework can guide a fresh understanding of resilience processes and new, more effective intervention development.

Bio

James Boulger, PhD, is a Distinguished University Teaching Professor Emeritus of the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus. Dr. Boulger was the director of the Family Medicine Preceptorship Program and the co-director of the Rural Medical Scholars Program.

Bio

Raymond Christensen, MD, has practiced family medicine for approximately 40 years, making it his personal mission to provide rural communities with access to high quality health care. He serves as associate dean for rural health at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus, and associate director of the Rural Physician Associate Program. He also advises the Family Medicine Interest Group on the Duluth campus.

Bio

Dr. Doberstein joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus in January 2022 following 37 years of practice as a family medicine physician in rural, urban, and military settings. She has been full-time faculty at FM residencies in Georgia and Minnesota and continues to teach part-time at the Duluth Family Medicine Residency Program.

Teaching Summary

In addition to ongoing curriculum development and admission responsibilities, Dr. Doberstein will assist Learning Community faculty leaders with clinical skill development and mentor students during their adult and pediatric H&P experiences.

Bio

Brenna Greenfield is a licensed psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health. Her research focuses on substance use disorder treatment and recovery, prevention of opioid overdose deaths, behavioral health interventions, and Indigenous health equity. Other interests include mindfulness-based interventions, motivational interviewing, community-based participatory research, and scientific communication. Dr. Greenfield publishes regularly in peer-reviewed journals, serves on the editorial board of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment, and has reviewed grants for the National Institutes of Health. The Arrowhead Regional Arts Council, internal university sources, and the National Institutes of Health have funded her team's work.

Research Summary

Substance use disorder treatment Behavioral interventions Harm reduction Community engagement Indigenous health equity 

Bio

Amy Greminger, MD, joined the faculty at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth campus in 2017. She is also part of the elder care and geriatric team at Essentia Health - Duluth Clinic.

Research Summary

I am interested in medical education, geriatrics, palliative care, and point of care ultrasound in medical education.

Bio

Ryan Harden, MD, MS, joined the faculty in 2015 and currently serves as course director for Community Clinical Medicine at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus. Dr. Harden has a clinical practice at Gateway Clinic in Sandstone, Minn., where he serves as Medical Director, including a hospital practice at Essentia Health Moose Lake, Minn.Dr. Harden also teaches Biochemistry, Molecular Biology, Microbiology, Medical Genetics, Internal Medicine and Pediatrics to students preparing for the United States Medical Licensing Exam (USMLE). He has given lectures all over the world, including Debrecen, Hungary, Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, St. George's University, Grenada and Toronto, Canada. He has also been a guest lecturer with the Montana State University WWAMI program and he has delivered CME lectures on the Ethics of Genetic Testing. He has been a panelist and host for WDSE-TV's(PBS North) television program "Doctors On Call."Dr. Harden has been involved in community programs to prevent and treat prescription drug abuse. He has also worked closely with pharmacists to improve patient compliance with prescription medicines. Dr. Harden enjoys spending his free time with his family. His recreational interests include fly fishing, cross-country skiing, marathon running, motorcycling, scuba diving, waterskiing and ice hockey.

Bio

Kristen Jacklin, PhD, is a Professor in the Department of Family Medicine and Biobehavioral Health as well as the Associate Director of the Memory Keepers Medical Discovery Team – Health Equity (MK-MDT) at the University of Minnesota Medical School, Duluth Campus.  Dr. Jacklin is a medical anthropologist with an extensive background in community-based Indigenous health research and health equity. Her research focuses on chronic disease care for Indigenous peoples, including investigations concerning aging; cognitive health and dementia; diabetes; and Indigenous health/medical education. Dr. Jacklin leads the Indigenous Cultural Understandings of Alzheimer’s Disease and Related Dementias – Research and Exchange (I-CARE) program of research which pairs community-based participatory research (CBPR) approaches with Indigenous methodologies to address dementia disparities in Indigenous populations. She also co-leads with Dr. Wayne Warry, the Center for Community Engaged Rural Dementia and Alzheimer’s Research (CERDAR). CERDAR uses CBPR approaches to engage rural participants in projects concerning the prevention, diagnosis and care for people with dementia in rural communities. Dr. Jacklin is the founder of the International Indigenous Dementia Research Network and the Indigenous Cognition Awareness and Aging Awareness Research Exchange (I-CAARE.ca).