Stefanie Gillson, MD

Stefanie Gillson, MD, MHS (Mdewakanton Dakota) is an Assistant Professor in the Yale Child Study Center at Yale School of Medicine and a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) K12-sponsored Yale Drug Use, Addiction, and HIV Prevention Research (DAHRS) Scholar. She is also an Institute Scholar and a CIRCLE Scholar at the Johns Hopkins Center for Indigenous Health.

Dr. Gillson's research focuses on Indigenous mental health across the life course, with an emphasis on maternal, child, and adolescent, substance use, and community-based participatory research (CBPR). Through partnerships with Indigenous communities, she seeks to develop, implement, and evaluate culturally grounded approaches to improve the health and well-being of Indigenous youth, mothers, and families while addressing the impacts of historical and contemporary trauma.

She is an active member of the Association of American Indian Physicians (AAIP), where she supports efforts to recruit and mentor Indigenous students pursuing careers in medicine. She is also a co-founder of the Women’s Mental Health Conference at Yale.

Dr. Gillson earned her medical degree from the University of Minnesota Medical School Duluth campus, where her training emphasized rural and Indigenous health.