Basil Reyes is a 2nd generation Mexican-American born and raised in San Antonio, Texas. His maternal grandparents were farm workers who traveled with their first five children across the United States to sustain themselves. His parents earned a high school degree and soon after started over four decades of employment –his father worked as a civilian at an Air Force base and his mother as a nursing assistant, and eventually a ward clerk, at the local hospital.

His passion for public health stems from very personal experiences. When he was 12, his mother had a series of heart attacks at the age of 41 and stayed in intensive care for more than two weeks, which then lead to a daily regimen of medication for her hypertension and eventual surgery. Over the years, Basil started to realize the correlation between diet and health. Basil remains eager to learn about and implement strategies of evidence-based approaches to promoting health and preventing co-morbidities, especially in lower socioeconomic populations with limited or no health insurance.

In addition to his BA in English from the University of Texas at Austin, Basil holds a master’s degree in public health from Columbia’s Mailman School.

Basil is currently responsible at City Harvest to contribute to the development of a multi-year plan to monitor and evaluate the programming provided in four low-income neighborhoods of New York City. This includes the development of appropriate and practical instruments to collect data from program participants and analysis of the results. The result of this plan will be to monitor the progress in achieving the desired outcomes considered to occur with the efforts.