Biography
Abigail Reese, PhD, RN, CNM is an assistant professor and the Nurse-Midwifery Program Director at the University of New Mexico (UNM) College of Nursing. She has wide-ranging clinical experience practicing midwifery in a variety of settings, including home, freestanding birth center, hospital, academic medical center, and community 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 role of midwives to meet the respectful care needs of underserved communities, and she maintains a strong commitment to training a culturally diverse profession of midwives as leaders of multidisciplinary collaborative care models to serve New Mexican communities 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 midwifery workforce and rural perinatal care access, especially birthing services. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Nursing and Health Policy Collaborative Fellow at UNM, she conducted qualitative policy research that addressed access to maternity care 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
Gender
Female
Languages
- Spanish