Spero Manson

Spero M. Manson, Ph.D. (Pembina Chippewa) is Distinguished Professor of Public Health and Psychiatry, directs the Centers for American Indian and Alaska Native Health, and occupies the Colorado Trust Chair in American Indian Health within the Colorado School of Public Health at the University of Colorado Denver’s Anschutz Medical Center. His programs include 10 national centers, which pursue research, program development, training, and collaboration with 225 Native communities, spanning rural, reservation, urban, and village settings across the country. Dr. Manson has acquired $268 million in sponsored research to support this work and published 280 articles on the assessment, epidemiology, treatment, and prevention of physical, alcohol, drug, as well as mental health problems over the developmental life span of Native people.

His numerous awards include the APHA’s Rema Lapouse Mental Health Epidemiology Award (1998) and Award for Lifetime Contribution to the Field of Mental Health (2019), 4 special recognition awards from the IHS (1985, 1996, 2004, 2011), election to the National Academy of Medicine (2002); 2 Distinguished Mentor Awards from the GSA (2006; 2007), AAMC’s Nickens Award (2006); George Foster Award for Excellence (2006) and Career Achievement Award (2020) from the Society for Medical Anthropology, NIH Health Disparities Award for Excellence (2008), Bronislaw Malinowski Award from the Society for Applied Anthropology (2019); and CDC Foundation’s Elizabeth Fries Health Education Award (2021). He is widely acknowledged as one of the nation’s leading authorities in regard to Indian and Native health.