CPH 38 — Courage in the Questions: A Conversation with Dr. Sandte Stanley

In this episode of the Courageous Public Health Podcast, Dr. Sandte Stanley—public health scientist, sociologist, and founder of Atlas Collaborative Consulting Network—shares how courage has guided every step of her journey. She talks about discovering public health through an ACES internship, navigating personal loss during graduate school, and later earning a PhD in sociology so she could ask the structural questions that public health can sometimes overlook.

She also reflects on how her identity as a Black and Native woman shapes her experience in professional spaces—where her expertise is sometimes doubted, dismissed, or echoed back to her—and why she continues pushing for solutions, community power, and accountability anyway.

Dr. Stanley names a future where communities lead, data tells the truth, and public health finally does what it was always meant to do: serve the people.

Meet Dr. Sandte Stanley

Dr. Sandte Stanley is a behavioral and social scientist whose career reflects a deep commitment to equity, leadership, and meaningful change. With a PhD in Sociology and a Master of Public Health, she has spent her career advancing disparities research, designing transformative programs, and championing the power of stories to drive impact in communities of color, for women, and across intersecting identities.

As the founder and principal consultant of Atlas Collaborative Consulting Network, Dr. Stanley

helps organizations design intentional curricula, evaluate programs, and develop leaders through a lens of inclusion and systems change. Her work bridges data and humanity—creating spaces where evidence, strategy, and lived experience intersect.

Outside of work, she loves to travel the world, brunch, and spend time with her family, found family, and her dog Pepe. She is also a proud citizen of the Muscogee Creek Nation.

Listen To This Episode of The Courageous Public Health Podcast

Conversation Highlights

• Becoming a First-Generation Scholar — Dr. Stanley shares how education became her anchor—often without mentors, guidance, or a roadmap—and how losing her father during graduate school reshaped her purpose and commitment to health equity.
• Finding Public Health Through Lived Experience — She reflects on the CDC internship that changed her trajectory, the questions she couldn’t stop asking about racism and systems, and how those “annoying questions” led her to sociology to understand the structural roots of disparities.
• Reclaiming Her Ideas and Her Power — Dr. Stanley speaks candidly about being dismissed, doubted, or having her ideas repeated back to her by others—and the strategies she uses to reclaim credit, stay in the conversation, and continue pushing for what matters.
• Building Space Where None Existed — From founding student associations for Native and Black graduate students to leading organizational equity work, she describes why representation is not optional—and how she creates pathways for people who have historically been excluded.
• A Vision for Community-Led Public Health — Looking ahead, she names a future where communities—not institutions—set the agenda, where tech and public health work together for accessibility, and where inclusion, transparency, and structural solutions finally become the norm.

“I can't let someone’s hurt feelings stop me from having a discussion about why Black women are more likely to die from breast cancer.” — Dr. Sandte Stanley

Stay In Touch

With Dr. Sandte Stanley:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/sandte-stanley-phd-mph-ma-0a2187282/

Email: [e-mail]

Website: https://www.atlasccn.com/

With Dr. Kristi McClamroch:

LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/kristi-mcclamroch/

Website: www.CourageousPublicHealth.com

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We partner with public health, healthcare, nonprofit, philanthropic, and government organizations to design workshops and facilitated sessions that help women leaders recognize, strengthen, and intentionally use courage as a leadership skill — especially in times of uncertainty, burnout, and systems under strain.

If your organization would benefit from this kind of support, we’d love to connect. Reach out on LinkedIn or on our website!