Karina Walters

Karina Lynn Walters (born April 18, 1964) is a Choctaw-American social epidemiologist, health promotion scholar, and former psychotherapist. She is the director of the Tribal Health Research Office at the National Institutes of Health. Walters was a professor and the Katherine Hall Chambers Scholar at the University of Washington School of Social Work.

Life Walters was born on April 18, 1964 in Los Angeles, California and is an enrolled member of the Choctaw Nation of Oklahoma. She earned a Bachelor of Arts in sociology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 1987. Walters then completed a Master of Social Work (clinical) in social welfare in 1990 at UCLA.