Berkowitz named chair of department in nursing school

Dr. Bobbie Berkowitz

The School of Nursing has named Dr. Bobbie Berkowitz professor and chair of the Department of Psychosocial and Community Health, effective July 1.

“We are delighted with Bobbie Berkowitz’s appointment,” said Sue T. Hegyvary, outgoing dean. “She is highly regarded in the state, the region and the country for outstanding leadership in community health, especially for her work on the public health improvement plan. She will lead an outstanding faculty to intensify efforts to improve the health of individuals, families and communities.”

Berkowitz is currently director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Turning Point National Program Office, in the UW School of Public Health and Community Medicine. The goal of Turning Point is to strengthen the public health system so that states, local communities and their public health agencies are better equipped to address current and emerging health problems.

Berkowitz was deputy secretary of the Washington State Department of Health from 1993 to 1997, and was chief of nursing services for the Seattle-King County Department of Public Health from 1986 to 1993.

She has served on the Washington State Board of Health, the Washington Health Care Commission, the Hanford Environmental Health Foundation, the governor’s Transition Task Force on Health Care, the American Nurses Association Committee on Community-Based Indicators, and as co-chair of the Institute of Medicine’s National Committee on Monitoring and Improving the Health of Communities.

She is a fellow in the American Academy of Nursing, served on the Cabinet on Nursing Administration of the Washington State Nurses Association, and served on the Governing Council of the Public Health Nursing Section for the American Public Health Association.

Berkowitz holds bachelor’s and master’s degrees in nursing from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in nursing from Case Western Reserve University in Ohio. ¶

Laurie McHale