Dr. Becky Pearson is Head of the Public Health Sciences Department at New Mexico State University and a Professor of Public Health. She received her Doctorate in Health Science at the University of Arkansas and her Master’s in Public Health here at New Mexico State University.

She focuses on community, societal, and political factors in public health, as well as on household norms and behaviors surrounding food, transportation, and the environment. Before joining the Public Health Sciences Department, Dr. Pearson taught at Central Washington University, where she founded the CWU Campus Community Garden (now the Community Garden at the Wildcat Farm). As part of her engagement with the broader local community, she established the Ellensburg Community Kitchen—the first-ever collaborative nutrition and cooking education initiative in the area, meeting from 2010 through 2018—where community members came together in a public space to cook and share a meal on a regular basis.

As a socially focused, community-engaged academic, Dr. Pearson views issues and strategies through the lens of critical literacy; in short, this means that she works to ensure people know, and have the skills and confidence to do, what they need to in order to attain the health and social outcomes they want, whether for themselves or others. As a teacher and scholar, Dr. Pearson is particularly interested in human rights as a basis for public health work, and in strengthening academic and professional quality of life for students and faculty through leading positive organizational change.