Reynolds Moves Into Dean Role During Time of New Possibilities

With the recent announcement that Stewart Donaldson is taking a new role as executive director of the university’s evaluation efforts, the deanship of the School of Community & Global Health has moved from Donaldson to Kim Reynolds, a distinguished researcher in the field of health promotion and disease prevention and a member of the SCGH faculty since 2008.

Reynolds, who will serve as interim dean during the 2017-2018 academic year, said SCGH is starting the new academic year poised to take advantage of growing general interest in public health programs.

Reynolds has conducted studies—funded by the National Institutes of Health and by major national foundations—to develop and test programs for obesity prevention and the prevention of skin cancer, and to examine the determinants of health behavior. His work has primarily sought to improve the health behavior of children and adolescents, and he has conducted work in schools and school districts, among families, and through collaboration with health care organizations.

“We are grateful for Stewart’s leadership, and I’m honored to move into this role during an important transition,” Reynolds said. “Public health training is on the rise, and our school is growing. Our faculty and students are engaged in research that is truly cutting-edge and that truly changes lives. This is an exciting time for SCGH.”

That life-changing research, Reynolds said, includes Professor Nicole Gatto’s receipt of a grant award from the American Parkinson’s Disease Association to conduct collaborative research with UCLA and USC using data from the California Teachers Study, a cohort study of 133,000 female public school teachers and administrators begun in 1995.

Gatto’s project will provide important research findings to build understanding of risk factors for Parkinson’s disease. This most recent award adds to the $28,768,000 of grant funding received by the school since its inception in 2008 for the conduct of essential public health research.

Reynolds also points to the growth of SCGH’s professional doctorate (DrPH) in public health degree, which has doubled in size each year since it was established in 2015.

The program has also been expanded to include an embedded practicum conducted with collaborating health agencies in Riverside County and including a major medical center, ten federally qualified health centers, and several clinics throughout Riverside County.