Robin Fleming, Ph.D.

Assistant Teaching Professor
University of Washington

Fellowship Profile

Fellowship Year: 2017-2018
Fellowship Placements: Congressional Research Service, Sen Baldwin (D-WI)
Sponsoring Institution: National Academy of Medicine
Discipline / Profession: Nursing

Biography

Robin Fleming, RN, PhD, F.A.A.N
Dr. Fleming serves on the faculty of the University of Washington-Bothell as an Assistant Teaching Professor where her
teaching focuses on health policy and community and public health for nursing and health studies students. With rich
experience in school health, Dr. Fleming is Co-Director of the University's K-12 Behavioral Health Program funded by a
Washington State legislative proviso. She chairs the Curriculum Committee of the BSN program and coordinates the capstone
community health clinical coursework for RN-BSN students. Appointed as a Pro-Tem member of the Washington State
Nursing Care Quality Assurance Commission in 2021, Dr. Fleming works to protect public health and safety by influencing
nursing practice and policy in the State.
Dr. Fleming's work is informed by substantial interdisciplinary experience in school health, education, and policy at municipal,
state, and federal levels. As a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow (2017-2018), Dr. Fleming served in the
office of U.S. Senator Tammy Baldwin, where she worked on a number of public health, nursing, and education policy issues
and prepared briefs and other documents for Senator's Baldwin's work in the Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions
Committee. During her tenure as a Fellow, Dr. Fleming also worked in the Domestic Social Policy Division of the
Congressional Research Service, preparing and providing health policy research to members of Congress to help inform
legislation. Since moving back to Seattle, Dr. Fleming provided consulting services to the Washington State Health Care
Authority to assist the agency in organizing statewide site visits for the NAM Committee on the Future of Nursing 2020-2030
study. She served as lecturer and affiliate assistant professor at the University of Washington School of Nursing in the 2019
academic year, and became full-time faculty at the University of Washington's School of Nursing and Health Studies (Bothell
campus) in 2020.
Prior to her fellowship, Dr. Fleming led and administered school nursing and other school-based health services in
Washington State's 295 school districts for the State's education agency. Her work helped to reduce health inequities by
facilitating improved health status impacting school attendance and academic outcomes for vulnerable children. She formed
strong partnerships with multiple community organizations and state agencies to shape policies that promoted a culture of
health in non-health entities such as schools, and helped to embed nursing leadership in the State's Accountable
Communities of Health.
Dr. Fleming's policy work has been strongly informed by her 13-year career in school nursing in Seattle Public Schools where
she developed programs aimed at reducing health and academic disparities. With grant funding, she developed and led a
public health education and career pathway program for immigrant students. She also received funding to create a peer
health education program for low-income high school students focused on reproductive and mental health education needs
identified by the students. Dr. Fleming's research, which focuses on the relationship between student health status and
academic outcomes, and the role of school nursing in leveraging them, has been widely published in peer-reviewed journals,
and one of her studies won Best Completed Research Award of 2012 by the National Association of School Nurses.