UNR Community Health Sciences

Dr. Trudy A. Larson is Professor and founding Dean of the newly independent School of Community Health Sciences at the University of Nevada, Reno. She started as the Director of the school in 2011. Leading a school dedicated to public health and improving community health extends her passion for improving health in all communities.

She has overseen significant growth in enrollment, tripling to more than 2,000 current students, in this Council on Education for Public Health (CEPH) accredited program in both undergraduate and graduate education in the last 6 years. Prior to this appointment she was a professor in the department of pediatrics and former chair and associate dean at the University of Nevada, Reno School of Medicine. She has spent her career focusing on communicable diseases and has contributed to the field in research, education and service.

She has been active in the evaluation of local and national interventions and projects and has been an active participant on state-wide committees. Dr. Larson chairs the Nevada Donor Network Board and is active on the Nevada Public Health Foundation board. She continues to see patients at the HOPES clinic providing medical services to those with HIV/AIDS and has taken the lead in speaking to professional audiences and the general public on topics such as AIDS, disease outbreaks, sex education, and health care reform just to name a few.

Dr. Larson received her medical degree from the University of California, Irvine.  She completed a Pediatric residency at the University of California Davis Medical Center followed by a fellowship in pediatric infectious disease at UCLA.