Wynette Whitegoat, MSW

CONTACT EMAIL: whitegoat@wustl.edu

RESEARCH INTERESTS: Child and family well-being in Indigenous communities; Child maltreatment prevention

Wynette Whitegoat is a member of the Navajo Nation and social work doctoral student at the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis. She earned her Bachelor of Arts in Psychology and Sociology from Occidental College and is an alumna of the Brown School’s Master of Social Work program. Wynette’s interests lie in education and development across the lifespan in Indigenous communities with a focus on child maltreatment prevention. She previously worked at the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies as the Assistant Director. Wynette also worked in two capacities that focused on remote consultation to tribal home-visiting programs and program implementation and evaluation. 

Wynette is honored to be a doctoral fellow with the Council on Social Work Education’s Minority Fellowship Program and the Kathryn M. Buder Center for American Indian Studies. As she continues through the Brown School’s doctoral program, Wynette hopes to build on her current understanding of research and teaching practices to develop her own approaches to Indigenous methodologies that will prepare her for the dissertation journey and beyond.