UAS Alumna Valerie Davidson selected to participate in project "Conversations that Matter: Envisioning Racial Equity in Alaska"

(from website: http://www.alaskapublic.org/)

Conversations that Matter: Envisioning Racial Equity in Alaska is a part of the Alaska Native Dialogues on Racial Equity (ANDORE), a statewide project that aims to initiate, foster, and grow racial healing by meaningfully engaging in conversations in communities across Alaska on race, racism and racial equity; in order to move people into a place of understanding, healing and growth.

A full list of participants in that project is available online, including those involved in the broadcast program.

Valerie Davidson, Yup’ik, (Secretary/Treasurer of the Board) is currently the senior director of legal and intergovernmental affairs for the Alaska Native Tribal Health Consortium. She currently serves as chair of the Tribal Technical Advisory Group to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. She is a member of the Alaska Department of Health and Social Services/Tribal Health Medicaid Task Force, the Foraker Group Governance Board, and was formerly a member of the Medicaid Commission. Valerie worked for Yukon- Kuskokwim Health Corp., where she served as executive vice president and as general counsel. She worked as a legislative aide to the state Senate Finance Committee for former state Sen. John Binkley he has served in various roles to advance tribal health and self-governance. These include serving as co- lead negotiator for the Alaska Tribal Health Compact, and as a member of the Title V Negotiated Rulemaking Committee. In 1984, she was the president of the Alaska Federation of Natives Youth Council. Davidson earned a bachelor’s degree in elementary education from the University of Alaska Southeast and a Juris Doctor with Certificate in Indian Law from the University Of New Mexico School Of Law.