Elected Member
David Reyes, DNP, MN/MPH, RN, PHNA-BC, is dean in the School of Nursing & Health Care Leadership at the University of Washington Tacoma and holds adjunct faculty positions in the Schools of Nursing and Public Health on the UW Seattle campus. He has over 40 years of professional nursing and leadership experience in community and public health, higher education, and professional and community-based non-profit organizations. Dr. Reyes has taught undergraduate and graduate students in the areas of health policy and health systems, and community, public and population health. Prior to his academic position, David held leadership positions in the Community Health Services Division at the Department of Public Health – Seattle & King County where he was active in the agency’s diversity and social justice initiatives that included addressing institutional racism.
David’s primary scholarship and area of research include assessing community priorities to address the root causes of health inequity and disparity and building community leadership capacity to improve neighborhood livability using community-based participatory approaches that focus on equitable partnerships between communities and other stakeholders. His interests in community engagement and leadership extend beyond academic practice to his own community, where he is active in addressing food security as a founding member of the Rainier Beach Urban Farm & Wetlands, a co-operative partnership with Tilth Alliance (an urban agriculture advocate) and the City of Seattle.
He has held professional leadership roles at state and national levels including the Washington State Public Health Association, the American Public Health Association, the American Association of Colleges of Nursing, and the Institute of Medicine’s Standing Committee on Family Planning. He served on the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s National Advisory Committee for Academic Progression in Nursing and RWJF’s Public Health Nursing Workforce Advisory Committee.
Reyes received his Doctor of Nursing Practice (2013), and Master of Nursing and Master of Public Health degrees (2002) from the University of Washington. He received his Bachelor of Science in Nursing from Seattle University (1983), and is board certified in Advanced Public Health Nursing. In 2020, David received the University of Washington Tacoma’s 2020 Distinguished Community Engagement Award, and in 2017 was a recipient of the Washington State Nurses Association’s Marguerite Cobb Public Health/Community Health Nurse Award.