Shawn Blackshear

LCDR Shawn Blackshear (ret.), U.S. Public Health Service, started his career in public health with the Texas Boll Weevil Eradication Foundation in 1999, as a sensitive-sites pesticides drift prevention monitor. LCDR Blackshear has worked as a regional representative for the Agency for Toxic Substances and Disease Registry (ATSDR) and in numerous capacities at the Indian Health Service (IHS) since commissioning in 2001. He has a bachelor’s of science in microbiology from the University of Texas at El Paso, and a master’s of science in entomology from Sul Ross State University, Alpine, Texas. He currently serves as the Director for the Environmental Public Health Division at the Northwest Portland Area Indian Health Board (NPAIHB). He began asthma trigger identification home visits in 2015, at the Indian Health Service Yakama Ambulatory Health Clinic. He continues to conduct asthma home visits for the Asthma Management Program, is a member of the Puget Sound Asthma Coalition, manages a CDC Building Tribal Capacities well water risk assessment grant, and is a licensed registered sanitarian in Washington State. He brings 25 years of EH work experience to the NPAIHB Environmental Public Health Program, and officially assumed the directorship of the EPH program starting May 1st of 2024.

Author: Jonelle Yearout