Isabel P. Dunst: Biography

 

Isabel P. Dunst is the incoming chair of the Commission on Social Action of Reform Judaism, as of January 2016. A Member of the URJ Board (and formerly a Vice Chair), she served as President of Temple Sinai of Washington, DC from 1994 to 1996, and is currently an Officer of that congregation. She is also a member of Beth Abraham in Hagerstown, Maryland.  She has also formally held the positions of Chair of the Dues Policy Review Committee , Vice Chair of the URJ Investment Committee and Vice Chair of the URJ Budget Committee. She remains a Chair of the URJ Staff Pension Committee and Vice Chair of the Reform Israel Commission. Dunstdedicated herself to “repairing the world” at a young age, and carries a strong passion for hands-on social justice work which includes trips to New Orleans to help rebuild the city after Hurricane Katrina, and standing guard at Planned Parenthood Clinics  where she felt the power of “making a commitment with our physical bodies". She is particularly passionate about economic and racial justice as well as championing women’s issues such as reproductive choice, health and wage equity.
 
Dunst currently resides in the Washington, DC area and has received degrees from both Harvard School of Public Health and New York University School of Law. She worked as a lawyer at Hogan Lovells for 25 years where she practiced law on a broad array of health care issues, with an emphasis on coverage, reimbursement, and payment issues often involving new technologies. Before joining Hogan Lovells in 1990, Isabel completed  a 20 year career in government at the U.S. Department of Health & Human Services (HHS) where she had held a number of positions in the general counsel’s office, as the deputy general counsel of the department, the senior career legal position.