Local Profiles
Researching Mexico's Traditional Medicines & Foods
a profile of Dr. Leslie Korn
Dr. Leslie Korn is a researcher, educator and clinician-healer specializing in complementary/alternative medicine (CAM) and indigenous healing methods, who has been conducting research in the Bahía de Banderas and Cabo Corrientes regions since 1973.
Having practiced Nutritional Therapy, Polarity Therapy, and Massage and Bodywork for 10 years before she returned to graduate studies in conventional methods, Leslie now integrates the best of both worlds.
Dr. Korn has a PhD in Behavioral Medicine from the Union Institute, a Masters degree in Public Health from Harvard, where she specialized in tropical medicine, a Masters degree in Health Psychology, and was a Clinical Fellow and Faculty in Psychology and Religion at Harvard Medical School where she taught CAM for the treatment of PTSD.
As director of research at the Center for World Indigenous Studies, a non-profit American Indian organization, Leslie focuses on the intersection of indigenous science and biomedical science and the revitalization of traditional foods and healing methods of west Mexico and the Pacific Northwest and leads cooking, health and healing seminars.
As a 2009-2010 Fulbright scholar in Mexico, Dr. Korn is exploring the effects of tourism and development on indigenous women’s medical practices. The co-author (with Dr. Rudolph Ryser) of Preventing and Treating Diabetes, Naturally: The Native Way (DayKeeper Press, 2009) and Medicinal Plants of the Jungle/Plantas Medicinales de la Selva (DayKeeper Press, 2010) Leslie is married to a gentle spirit, and has three fabulous stepsons and two magical canine retrievers.
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