Biography
Abigail Reese, PhD, RN, CNM is an assistant professor and the Blue Cross and Blue Shield Endowed Professor in Nursing at the University of New Mexico (UNM) College of Nursing, where she serves as the Nurse-Midwifery Program Director. She has wide-ranging clinical experience practicing midwifery in a variety of settings, including home, freestanding birth center, hospital, academic medical center, and federally qualified health center models of care. Throughout her clinically focused career, Reese was actively involved in the teaching of nurse-midwifery and medical students and resident physicians. Reese is passionate about the essential role of midwives to meet the respectful care needs of communities across the spectrum of reproductive and primary care services, and she maintains a strong commitment to training a diverse profession of midwives to lead multidisciplinary, collaborative models of care for New Mexico and beyond.
Reese has worked for the NM Department of Health, where she served as the Maternal Health Program Manager and provided administrative oversight for midwifery practice regulation and the NM Maternal Mortality Review Committee. She also served as the Executive Director of the New Mexico Perinatal Collaborative, where her efforts focused on convening all stakeholders to improve outcomes for birthing people and families across New Mexico.
Reese’s research interests focus on the midwifery workforce and policy solutions to support equitable access to perinatal care in rural communities, especially local birthing services. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative Fellow at UNM, she conducted qualitative policy-focused research that addressed barriers and facilitators to perinatal care provision in rural New Mexico communities. She has also conducted evaluation research with community-based participatory research partnerships.
Areas of Specialty
Health Care Policy | Maternal and Child Health | Midwifery | Rural Health | Women's Health
Education
PhD, The University of New Mexico, 2018 (Nursing)
MSN, Yale University, 1998 (Nurse-Midwifery)
AB, Princeton University, 1992 (Anthropology)
Certifications
RN: Registered Nurse
CNM: Certified Nurse-Midwife
Languages
- Spanish