Denise Reinke received her diploma in nursing from Milwaukee County School of Nursing, Bachelor of Science in nursing from Alverno College, Milwaukee, Wisconsin, and graduated with honors from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor with a Master of Science degree.   Upon graduation, she was also the recipient of the University of Michgian School of Nursing, R. Faye McCain Memorial Award, in recognition of leadership and scholarly excellence in Medical Surgical Nursing. 

She has since been a nurse for over 30 years and spent a large majority of that time directly caring for people with cancer in a variety of settings.  Her first oncology experience as a nurse was in radiation oncology in the 1970s, when oncology nursing as a subspecialty was in its infancy.  Over the years, she has established an outpatient oncology program within a health maintenance organization, worked as part of a bone marrow transplant team, was a nurse practitioner in a private hematology/oncology practice, served as a consultant or oncology nurse educator facilitating patient support groups and community outreach programs, and worked as a medical science liaison for a pharmaceutical company. 

She is now a Sarcoma Nurse Practitioner at the University of Michigan Comprehensive Cancer Center, caring for a large number of sarcoma patients and helping to coordinate the clinical research efforts of the sarcoma team.  For the past 5 years, she has been working collaboratively with Dr. Baker to aid in the development and foster the tremendous growth of SARC.  Denise provides the administrative oversight, serving as the Vice President of Operations, for this consortium. 

Denise also served as the administrative director of Southwest Oncology Group (SWOG), responsible for planning, organizing, directing, and evaluating the activities of the office.  Additionally, she is an influential member of the national Oncology Nursing Society (ONS) and president of the local Ann Arbor chapter.  ONS is the largest professional oncology association in the world, dedicated to excellence in patient care, education, research, and administration in oncology nursing.  Additionally, Denise is a member of ASCO (American Society of Clinical Oncology), the American Academy of Nurse Practitioners, and CTOS (Connective Tissue Oncology Society).  She has recently coauthored publications on standing orders for nursing care of cancer patients and on a collaborative cancer clinical trial.  She has also been a guest lecturer at 4 major conferences this past year, providing important information and updates on sarcoma diagnosis and treatment.