I’m Corin Simone Reyes, MSN, RN, CHW, born and raised in San Antonio and I still live on the same block I grew up on. Community isn’t an idea to me, it’s home. I’m the oldest sibling, with a younger brother I adore, and much of who I am is shaped by where I come from and who raised me.
I followed in the footsteps of my mother, one of the first Black graduates of UT Health San Antonio’s School of Nursing, who trailblazed her way from BSN to FNP and DNP long before it was celebrated or easy to do so. Watching her build a life rooted in service, excellence, and resilience showed me what it looks like to move through spaces that weren’t built for you and to change them anyway.
Before my work in healthcare, I founded a nonprofit centered on supporting Black women through our natural hair journeys — before it was trendy, branded, or “marketable.” What began as hair justice grew into something bigger: a commitment to holding space for Black women to exist fully, beautifully, and without apology. That work still lives in everything I do today.
I’m a nurse, Community Health Worker, organizer, and mom of two, but I’m also a dancer at heart. For nearly a decade, I was part of an award-winning burlesque troupe, where I learned the art of expression, embodiment, and freedom in a whole different way. Movement taught me what healthcare sometimes forgets: that healing can be joyful, creative, and deeply personal.
Everything I do — in nursing, in community work, in motherhood — is about helping people feel more at home in their bodies and in their lives. Equity, to me, isn’t just policy or theory. It’s daily practice. It’s remembering where I come from. And it’s believing we all deserve to take up space, fully and honestly.