Navajo to earn a doctorate from UC Berkeley. Graduating in 1980, she worked as a research associate for the Institute for Scientific Analysis, focusing on American Indian issues. Joe then became an associate professor at UCLA in the Anthropology and American Indian Studies department. In 1986, Joe took a leave of absence from UCLA to assist the University of Arizona in developing a curriculum on disabilities and rehabilitation for indigenous people. She was involved in the research project, considered a landmark investigation into the needs of Native Americans, for the United States Department of Education. By the time the report, A Study of the Special Problems and Needs of American Indians with Handicaps Both on and off the Reservation, was completed in 1987, she had been hired as the co-director of the Native American Research and Training Center at the University of Arizona. By 1990, Joe was teaching as an associate professor and sole director of the Research and Training Center for the university. That year she was selected by the Smithsonian Institution to serve as one of 12 members on the inaugural board of the National Museum of the American Indian, which was to be constructed. Joe's work as a medical anthropologist involves evaluating health from a cultural perspective, including reluctance to remove traditional foods from the diet, taboos regarding touching preventing breast examinations, among other practices, which may result in minority populations receiving disparate health care services. Among her topics of interest are diabetes, alcoholism and substance abuse, and the impact of forced removal and location on indigenous populations. In addition to her work in the Family and Community Medicine Department, Joe teaches in the faculty of American Indian Studies and is an elected fellow of the Society for Applied Anthropology. She serves on the board of the Urban Indian Health Commission, an initiative of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation and the Urban Indian Health Institute of Seattle. Selected works References Citations Bibliography and 1941 births Living people People from Farmington, New Mexico Native American activists American nurses American women nurses Academics from New Mexico Navajo people University of New Mexico alumni University of California, Berkeley alumni University of California, Los Angeles faculty University of Arizona faculty American women academics 20th-century Native Americans 21st-century Native Americans 20th-century Native American women 21st-century Native American women