Growing up in the Ohkay Owingeh Pueblo in New Mexico, Dr. Denise GabaldonThronas saw family members and friends struggling with a range of ailments from diabetes to cancer, and was determined to choose a career that would allow her to help them.

The first from her family to attend college, she focused on biochemistry at New Mexico State University, hoping to apply her degree in some aspect of health care. “I was initially interested in pharmaceuticals for curing disease,” she says, “but that was problematic because of our cultural beliefs in healing.”