SUNY Online Teaching Ambassador 2023: Downstate – Simone Reynolds

Dr. Simone Reynolds currently serves as the Director of Online Learning and Instructional Innovation at the School of Public Health at SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University. Dr. Reynolds holds two certificates in Online Education – a Professional Certificate in Online Education and a Certificate in Online Education Administration, both from the University of Wisconsin-Madison. She holds a BS, in Biology from Randolph-Macon Woman’s College, an MPH in Epidemiology from New York Medical College School of Public Health, and a Ph.D. in Epidemiology from the University of Pittsburgh, Graduate School of Public Health.

During the current coronavirus pandemic, Dr. Reynolds championed the transition of our faculty to remote teaching and worked with our faculty to mitigate the dip in the change curve. She has experience developing, implementing, and managing online programs, and has been responsive to the current academic climate in which adult learners request more flexible learning options that do not fit the traditional mold of the 20th-century learner. She has created learner-centered environments for HyFlex and flipped classroom models as well as asynchronous online designs to meet this demand.

In her 10 years as a SUNY Downstate Health Sciences University faculty member in the School of Public Health, Dr. Reynolds has had the privilege to work with dynamic learners and superb faculty. In 2016, Dr. Reynolds designed her very first asynchronous online Epidemiology course. Today, she endeavors to ensure that the design of all her Epidemiology courses allows online learners to have an equally engaging and rewarding experience as those in her face-to-face classes. Dr. Reynolds continues to receive high praise from students taking her introductory and advanced epidemiology courses.