Washington Burns

Board Member

Dr. Washington Burns has spent the last 17 years working to better the lives of residents in the West Oakland neighborhood he once called his own. Now the Executive Director of the Prescott-Joseph Center for Community Enhancement, which offers free health, education, art and social services, Burns first settled at 27th and Adeline streets after moving from northern Mississippi when he was a teenager. He earned a degree in public health from UC Berkeley and a medical degree from the University of Buffalo. In 2000, he retired from his post as lab director in the department of pathology at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco, where he had worked for 34 years. He has won nearly countless awards for public service and is truly a pillar of the Oakland community.