Member. MatĂas Valenzuela, PhD, serves as Director of the Office of Equity and Community Partnerships for Public Health – Seattle & King County. He has been with King County since 2000, including as a lead for Equity and Social Justice when the office began in 2008. In 2015, he became the first director of the Office of Equity and Social Justice in King County, helping lead a countywide effort to address the root causes of inequity, with a particular focus on racism, in collaboration with county agencies and the community.
During the COVID-19 response, he directed Community Mitigation and Recovery and co-led the county team behind the June 2020 declaration of Racism as a Public Health Crisis. Earlier in his career, he worked as a print and broadcast journalist in the United States and abroad. He has also served as a Fulbright professor in Nicaragua and is an Affiliate Assistant Professor at the University of Washington’s School of Public Health and Community Medicine. Today, he contributes to numerous local and national boards and advisory groups.