Departmental Affiliations
Center & Institute Affiliations
Meenakshi Richardson, PhD, MS, MPH, works alongside Indigenous communities to promote generational healing and health equity through strength-based and culturally informed prevention strategies.
Research Interests
Prevention science; community-based participatory research; health equity; Indigenous health; mental health; substance use; traditional healing modalities; qualitative methodologies
Additional Links
Experiences & Accomplishments
Meenakshi Richardson, PhD, MS MPH is a citizen of the Haliwa-Saponi Tribe and of Indo-Fijian descent. She has worked alongside diverse Indigenous communities, government entities, and community-based organizations to provide health and human services, community-based participatory research, and Indigenous informed systems of care. She engages and advocates for reciprocal collaborations through decolonial praxis to address intergenerational trauma, health equity, and social justice. Her research interests involve trauma transmission prevention among Indigenous populations and communities of color via kinship systems, caregiver-child relationships, traditional healing modalities, and protective socio-ecological determinants of health to address various health outcomes such a substance use and toxic stress through trauma-informed, culturally grounded prevention, and strength-based intervention strategies that center Indigenous knowledge and methodologies.
Select Publications
Richardson, M., Waubanascum, C., Waters, S. F., & Sarche, M. (2025). A decolonial perspective on Indigenous infant and early childhood mental health: Reclaiming Indigenous ways for the next seven generations. Infant mental health journal, 46(4), 361–375. https://doi.org/10.1002/imhj.70000
Waters, S. F., Richardson, M., Mills, S. R., Marris, A., Harris, F., & Parker, M. (2024). Beyond attachment theory: Indigenous perspectives on the child–caregiver bond from a northwest tribal community. Child Development, 95, 1829–1844. https://doi.org/10.1111/cdev.14127
Richardson, M., & Waters, S. F. (2023). Indigenous Voices Against Suicide: A Meta-Synthesis Advancing Prevention Strategies. International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health, 20(22), 7064. https://doi.org/10.3390/ijerph20227064
Richardson, M., Big Eagle, T., & Waters, S. F. (2022). A systematic review of trauma intervention adaptations for indigenous caregivers and children: Insights and implications for reciprocal collaboration. Psychological Trauma: Theory, Research, Practice, and Policy, 14(6), 972–982. https://psycnet.apa.org/doi/10.1037/tra0001225