Susan Brown Trinidad, MA, PhD (she/her)
Sue Trinidad is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Bioethics and Humanities, having worked as a Research Scientist in the department from 2005-2022. She is the co-Principal Investigator of an NIAID-funded grant, Alaska Native People Advancing Vaccine Uptake, which will use peer-to-peer outreach, education, and motivational interviewing to increase COVID-19 vaccination among Alaska Native and American Indian people in Alaska. She has conducted empirical bioethics work concerning the ethical, legal, and social implications (ELSI) of genomic research and precision medicine with several large national consortia including the eMERGE Network, the Northwest-Alaska Pharmacogenomics Research Network, the CSER Consortium, and two Centers of Excellence in ELSI Research, the Center for Genomics and Healthcare Equality (CGHE) at UW and the Center for the Ethics of Indigenous Genomic Research (CEIGR) at the University of Oklahoma.
Research interests include the dynamics and ethics of equitable collaboration in health research; patient-centered communication and medical decision-making; the ethical and social implications of genomic research, wide data-sharing, and broad consent; moral and dispositional development; and qualitative methods development. As a white settler engaged in research with Alaska Native and American Indian communities, Dr. Trinidad works to develop participatory, strengths-based approaches to health research that respect Tribal sovereignty and the right of Indigenous peoples to self-determination. She served on the UW Institutional Review Board from 2009-2014.
Dr. Trinidad holds a PhD in educational psychology (Learning Sciences & Human Development) from UW, an MA from the Interdisciplinary Program in Health and Humanities at Michigan State University, and a BA in English from the College of William and Mary. She came to UW from an executive-level position in product development for companies specializing in telephone triage and disease management counseling.
