IHS Clinical and Community Workforce Summit 2026

Valerie Jones, MPA, MA

Elder Health Care Data Coordinator

Ms. Valerie Jones serves as the Elder Health Care Data Coordinator for the DCCS at the IHS Headquarters. She brings over twenty years of public service experience in the health and human services industries. Her background and interests center on improving health outcomes in Native American communities.

Prior to joining IHS, Ms. Jones served as the Health Administrator of the Navajo Nation Division of Aging and Long-Term Care Support Program overseeing aging services in 110 communities on the Navajo Nation. She also served as the Tribal Arizona Long-Term Care Administrator with the Arizona Health Care Cost Containment System, overseeing intergovernmental agreements with various Tribes in Arizona. Additionally, she worked with the Department of Commerce on the Decennial Census, providing technical assistance and administrative guidance to the Dallas Regional Census Center. Ms. Jones earned her Master of Public Administration degree from Arizona State University and a Master of Arts in Rehabilitation and Mental Health Counseling degree from the University of Arizona.

LCDR Maria Bellantoni, MD, USPHS,

IHS Chief Clinical Consultant for Geriatrics & Palliative Care

LCDR Maria Bellantoni, MD, is an internist and geriatrician in the Primary Care Medicine Clinic at Phoenix Indian Medical Center. She is a graduate of the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences and a commissioned officer in the U.S. Public Health Service. She completed an internal medicine residency at the Johns Hopkins Hospital and a fellowship in Geriatric Medicine & Gerontology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Her clinical interests include integrated geriatrics practice in primary care, dementia care models, and substance use disorders in older adults. She currently serves as the IHS Chief Clinical Consultant for Geriatrics & Palliative Care, and provides clinical consultation as a member of the IHS National Elder Health team.

Jolie Crowder, PhD, MSN, RN, CCM

National Elder Services Consultant

Dr. Jolie Crowder serves as the National Elder Care Consultant for the DCCS at the IHS Headquarters. In this role, she serves as the principal representative responsible for planning, formulating, and implementing national elder care policies and programming focused on early recognition, diagnosis, and management of dementia and Alzheimer’s. Additional responsibilities include representing the DCCS in the elder program forward-facing outreach activities and monitoring and evaluating the effectiveness of the elder care program. Before joining the IHS, she worked for more than a decade with the International Association for Indigenous Aging as a Senior Director and Director of Research and Evaluation and briefly with the National Council for Urban Indian Health. She served as Principal Investigator for a National Healthy Brain Initiative award and lead evaluator for four tribal Administration for Community Living Alzheimer’s grants. In addition, Dr. Crowder has hands-on experience developing plain language, and culturally relevant resources for use by and for Indian Country. She has published peer-reviewed publications on elder abuse, dementia, and, most recently, social determinants of cancer in American Indian and Alaska Native populations working in collaboration with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC). Dr. Crowder graduated with a master’s in health systems management and a doctorate in nursing science from the University of Virginia, where her doctoral dissertation focused on elder mistreatment in Native populations.

Jamie Olsen

Management Analyst, Indian Health Service

Jamie Olsen is a Management Analyst for the DCCS at the Indian Health Service (IHS). Prior to DCCS, Mrs. Olsen served 22 years at the Red Lake IHS Service Unit. From 2000 to 2011, she was a Staff Radiologic Technologist who focused on installing the Hospital’s first in-house mammography unit. Mrs. Olsen was the first mammographer on staff and was responsible for the mammography compliance and regulation program. In 2011, she was promoted to Radiology Supervisor at Red Lake IHS. During this time, she managed IHS Staff and Radiology Contracting Staff. Her primary duty consisted of managing significant contracts at the COR II level. She was responsible for the Radiology budget and was involved in the revenue enhancement committee. Mrs. Olsen also served as the Subject Matter Expert (SME) for many Area Wide Radiology projects. She has earned her Diagnostic Radiologic Technology degree through the St. Cloud Hospital School of X-Ray.

Nichole Cottier

Acting Director, Division of Clinical and Community Services

Nichole Cottier, Oglala Lakota, joined the Indian Health Service (IHS) in November 2023 as the Community Health Branch Chief for the Division of Clinical and Community Services (DCCS) and has served as the Acting Director of DCCS since April 2024. She began her career in Tribal public health with the University of Colorado’s National Center for American Indian and Alaskan Native Mental Health Research and then moved on to serve in various roles with the Pine Ridge Indian Health Service and the Great Plains Tribal Leaders’ Health Board. Nichole has a bachelor's degree in Business Management and over 20 years of experience working with tribal communities to restore traditional health practices, build public health infrastructure, and implement programs to improve health outcomes. Nichole is a certified American Council on Exercise (ACE) Youth Fitness Specialist, a certified Health Coach, a Physical Activity Kit (PAK) Trainer, and a Cooper Trained Fitness Specialist.