Geographic Regions: What is currently known as the USA

Topics of Expertise: Community health, health policy and social justice, Native/Indigenous health, bioethics

Research and Teaching Interests

Critical Public Health, Social Justice, Native/Indigenous Health, Health Equity, Community-based Participatory Research, Qualitative Research Methods, Program Implementation, Program Evaluation, and Public Health Policy

Biography

Yá'át'ééh! Shí éí Beatriz Oralia Reyes yinishyé Honágháahnii nishłį́ Nakaii dine’é bashishchiin Áshįįhí dashicheii Nakaii dine’é dashinalí. Ákót’éego diné asdzáán nishłį́. Chicago kééhasht’į́. Na’nízhoozhí déé’ naashá. She is an enrolled citizen of the Navajo Nation.

Professor Reyes is a trained public health practitioner who earned her Bachelor of Science in Zoology from the University of Oklahoma, Master of Public Health in Health Behavior from East Carolina University, and Doctor of Public Health from Drexel University’s Dornsife School of Public Health.

In her teaching, she aims to challenge students to understand the gradients and intersections of structural oppression, theories of liberation, and challenges students to reflect on the difficulty of seeking solutions in settler colonial society. Professor Reyes’s Native American Health Research course explores the role and impact of settler colonialism on the research process intended to improve health outcomes for Native/Indigenous peoples. Additionally, her Native American Health Systems and Policy course seek to expose students to the complex and often challenging relationship Native nations endure with the U.S. federal government and its impact on healthcare access. Her Community-based Participatory Research course surveys the barriers and facilitators for actively centering power in communities throughout the research process. In her Literary Genres + Health: A TBR Read along course she encourages students to engage in reading for fun and consider how health relates to both the reading experience and as book themes. 

In her graduate work, she assessed the experiences and behaviors of lay health facilitators in a faith-placed prediabetes prevention program in two churches in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Professor Reyes evaluated an adapted 16-week Diabetes Prevention Program, through a qualitative analysis of program audio and individual interviews. She assessed adaptations (deletions, changes, and additions) to program materials by lay health facilitators, which enabled a better understanding of how these facilitators and program participants generated data throughout the program’s implementation. Additionally, Professor Reyes worked for 3 years at the Foundations of Health Research Center, as a postdoc, focused on how to best facilitate and support coping skills among first-generation low-income undergraduate students, utilizing theories and strategies from Growth Mindset, Shift and Persist, and Skin-Deep Resilience. Dr. Edith Chen’s partnership with the TRiO Student Support Services at a local university, provided Professor Reyes the opportunity to implement a 5-session intervention to first-generation freshmen students over the course of three years.

Courses Regularly Taught

• Community-based Participatory Research
• Global Bioethics
• Literary Genres + Health: A TBR Read along
• Native American Health Research and Prevention
• Native Nations, Healthcare Systems, and U.S. Policy

Courses Previously Taught

• Introduction to International Public Health
• Native American Health
• Qualitative Research Methods in Global Health
• Northwestern Bridge Summer Program: Introduction to Critical Thinking in the Humanities and Social Sciences
• Feinberg Medical Humanities and Applied Arts Seminar: Native Health + Healthcare in a Settler Society