Jennifer Bethune, a UW senior majoring in public health, is the current recipient of the Rattlinggourd Scholarship established by Dylan and Susan Wilbanks. She is a descendant of Native Americans from North Dakota—the Turtle Mountain Band of Chippewa Indians. Her grandfather grew up on a reservation before moving to the Pacific Northwest.

Thanks to the Rattlinggourd award, Bethune has been able to reduce her part-time hours as a barista and begin volunteering with IWRI, the Indigenous Wellness Research Institute, a UW center that focuses on part­nering with and working alongside Native communities through equitable research.

"I want to understand how historical trauma is cyclically transmitted and exhibited across generations. I want to better understand the effects of this trauma that includes higher rates of violence, suicide, a higher burden of disease," she says.

After she graduates, she wants to partner with Native communities to research commu­nity-identified health disparities and possible solutions. "The approach of Community-Based Participatory Research is to partner with community members to ensure that the research being done involves the community and is in the interest of that community," she says. "It is research done with the community, not on the community."