03/24/2026
Lori Reichel doesn’t just strive to instruct future health educators at SUNY Cortland. The assistant professor of health’s aim has always been national in its reach.
“I have a passion of wanting people to have the health skills so they can succeed, that they have the life skills with the updated health knowledge and that they care about it,” said Reichel, who can quickly run though how to correctly wash one’s hands in a public restroom. It involves not touching things with one’s clean hands.
Outside the classroom, she’ll invest a small amount of her own money to host an educational podcast, or she’ll labor long hours on a textbook that will only reward her enough money from the publisher for an occasional dinner out — for the sake of possibly helping newcomers in her field succeed.
So Reichel was especially pleased to be honored for her work by her peers in the National Academy of Health and Physical Literacy (nahpl.org).
“It’s an honor to get this award, a huge honor,” Reichel said.
In early March during the organization’s annual conference in Lake Buena Vista, Florida, she was singled out to receive the group’s inaugural Health Literacy Advocacy Award. Hers was among an array of new awards categories presented at the event.
“Lori works tirelessly for our students, and it is nice to see (that work) recognized,” said Eileen Gravani, interim Health Department chair.
“What is fun for me is that this organization is honoring people for the first time this year,” said Reichel, who for the past two years has hosted the School Health Educators podcast. In a recent podcast, she interviewed a woman named the 2025 Teacher of the Year for her work with SHAPE America, and how we teach in the classroom.
“NAHPL is a newer organization and part of it is they they’re looking for people who truly support health literacy,” Reichel said.
By hosting the School Health Educators podcast and website, Reichel currently helps professionals effectively reach the public for the sake of their health literacy and well-being. She created the website to offer a variety of resources to health teachers across standards and content areas.
She has recently written professional journal articles in her field and is the sole author of Tactile Tools for Social Emotional Learning: Activities to Help Children Self-Regulate with SEL, PreK-5 (Routledge, 2025). The text helps not only educators but others find “tools” to help people of all ages self-regulate their emotions.
She also shares practical informational materials such as a self-examination postcard for when students attend office hours so that the young adults can check their own health.
“I’ve been giving them to my students that have roommates and stuff, and they are putting them in the shower for breast self-examination,” Reichel said. “And on the flip side of the card is testicular self-examination because testicular cancer is highest for 15- to 25-year-olds. So, to give them the skills and the care to check their private parts, you know, that’s health literacy.”
In the health education field, a couple years ago she was known for her podcast called Puberty Prof. Launched in January 2021, the Puberty Prof podcast ran for more than 100 episodes with Reichel hosting a diverse list of national experts on a range of topics relating to youth at puberty.
Named the 2010 American Association for Health Education Professional of the Year and the 2007 New York State Health Educator of the Year, Reichel taught at Western Michigan University for several years before joining SUNY Cortland in 2022. From 2013 until 2019, she was a faculty member at University of Wisconsin-La Crosse.
Reichel is a frequent presenter at state and national conferences, as well as a media consultant in her areas of expertise, including Bloom-for-alland the podcasts Reframing Our Stories, Mom Essentials and Stand Up Comedy Sex Ed.
Reichel is the author of a book for parents and caregivers, Common Questions Children Ask About Puberty, and a manual for educators titled Tools for Teaching Comprehensive Human Sexuality Education: Lessons, Activities, and Teaching Strategies Utilizing the National Sexuality Education Standards. She also developed a low-cost game called the “Talk Puberty” app, also available as the “Puberty Chit-Chat”; and Discussion Cards as an ice breaker on awkward or sensitive topics.