Caroline Tait is Métis from MacDowall, Saskatchewan. She is trained as a medical anthropologist with research interests in addressing Indigenous health inequities and the advancement of social justice. She earned her MA at the University of California (Berkeley) and her PhD at McGill University. She has been a Fulbright Scholar and Visiting Fellow at Harvard and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at McGill. In 2004, Caroline returned to her home province of Saskatchewan to join the College of Arts and Science, University of Saskatchewan and the Indigenous Peoples’ Health Research Centre—a provincial collaborative involving First Nations University of Canada and the Universities of Regina and Saskatchewan. In 2012, Caroline became a faculty member of the Department of Psychiatry, College of Medicine, University of Saskatchewan. In January 2023, she joined the Faculty of Social Work and the Cumming School of Medicine at the University of Calgary with a focus on Indigenous Health Equity and Inclusion.
Currently, Caroline’s primary research focus is Indigenous peoples and organ donation and transplantation. This is a field of research which is emerging in Indigenous health and for which Caroline has been a national and international leader. Caroline is a member of the Canadian Donation and Transplantation Research Program (CDTRP) and, also founder of the First Nations and Métis Organ Donation and Transplantation Network and the International Indigenous Organ Donation and Transplantation Network.
Caroline is also involved in research focused on Indigenous people living with mental illness who are incarcerated. This work is in partnership with STR8 UP, a Saskatoon based organization that assists individuals who want to exit gang life. Currently Caroline is working on a case study of a young Indigenous man who committed suicide in early 2020 while incarcerated. This research seeks to honour him by giving voice to his life journey and by identifying and addressing risk factors that contribute to elevated rates of suicide among incarcerated Indigenous people.