It has been 25 years since Cherokee Native American tribal member John Lowe, PhD ’96, RN, FAAN, successfully defended his doctoral dissertation in nursing at the University of Miami, “The Self-Reliance of the Cherokee Adult Male.” During Native American Heritage Month this November, Dean Cindy Munro, UM School of Nursing and Health Studies, spoke with Dr. Lowe, the School’s 2007 Alumnus of Distinction, about his path as a nursing scientist, the impact of his research, and the promise of a new grant to implement a system-wide application of his Talking Circle intervention to support Native American youth mental health and well-being.
Conversations with Dean Munro, Featuring Dr. John Lowe
About John Lowe, PhD ’96, RN, FAAN
Dr. Lowe is the Joseph Blades Centennial Memorial Professor at the University of Texas at Austin School of Nursing. Previously he was founding director of the Center for Indigenous Nursing Research for Health Equity at Florida State University College of Nursing. A co-author of the Conceptual Framework for Nursing in Native American Culture, Dr. Lowe was the first Native American man inducted as a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing. In 2019, he was appointed to the National Advisory Council of Nursing Research, an advisory body to the National Institute of Nursing Research at the National Institutes of Health. He is a 2021 grantee of the Hillman Innovations in Care Program.
Dr. Lowe developed and studies interventions for the prevention and reduction of substance use and other risk behaviors among Native American and Indigenous youth and young adults. These studies and other health programs are guided by models that he developed, including the Cherokee Self-Reliance, Native Self-Reliance and Native-Reliance Models. Dr. Lowe also developed the first manualized Talking Circle intervention to reduce substance use and other risk behaviors among Native American and Indigenous people, which the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Programs has noted as an Evidence-Based Program for the well-being of youth.
The principal investigator of several National Institutes of Health-funded research projects that study the effectiveness of these interventions, Dr. Lowe’s work has been acknowledged through numerous awards, such as the American Academy of Nursing Edge Runner Award, American Nurses Association Luther Christman Award, Florida Nurses Association Cultural Diversity Award, Great 100 Centennial Research Award, Nursing Educator of the Year Award, Nurse of the Year Award, Lifetime Achievement In Education & Research Award, and the Researcher of the Year at the Professor Rank Award.