Sannisha Dale, PhD – CHANGE Program Co-Director

Associate Professor, Department of Psychology

Email: sdale@med.miami.edu

Pronouns: she/her/hers

        Dr. Dale is an Assistant Professor in Psychology at the University of Miami (UM), the Founder and Director of the SHINE (Strengthening Health through INnovation and Engagement) Research Program. Her primary research interests are (a) enhancing our understanding investigating psychosocial (e.g., microaggressions, discrimination) and structural factors (e.g., poverty) that relate to HIV health disparities, (b) developing effective prevention and intervention strategies to promote resilience (c) outcomes amongst survivors of trauma and individuals with or placed at risk for HIV, especially members of racial minority (e.g., Blacks/African Americans) and gender and sexual minority groups who are heavily burdened by the HIV epidemic, and (d) engaging community members and stakeholders in research.

        Dr. Dale has been the PI of 11 grants in the area of HIV, all of which have focused on marginalized racial and gender communities. These include an R01 and R56 from NIMH focused on Black women living with HIV, K23 award from NIMH focused on an intervention for Black women living with HIV, EHE Implementation Science project from NIMH in Miami’s Black Communities, UM COVID-19 research award focused on COVID-19 factors impacting Black women living with HIV, Pilot Award from UMCFAR on addressing trauma among transgender women living with HIV, and a provost award from UM on PrEP for Black women placed at risk for HIV. In addition, she is also the Director for the Mental Health Disparities Core of CHARM and the Scientific Director for Community Engagement for CHARM where she established and oversees the Community Advisory Board. As part of her SHINE research program and her commitment to influencing access along the pipeline to health disparities research, Dr. Dale works hard to attract, recruit, and mentor minoritized and marginalized doctoral and undergraduate students. Further, due to the intersectional space that Dr. Dale occupies personally as a Black women in academia and professionally as an HIV researcher focusing on marginalized communities, she mentors junior faculty and doctoral students beyond her department and university. 

Relevant links: 

‪Sannisha Dale - ‪Google Scholar

shine.psy.miami.edu 

Daniel J. Feaster, PhD – CHANGE Program Co-Director 

Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences

Email: dfeaster@med.miami.edu

Pronouns: he/him/his

        Dr. Feaster, a gay-identified biostatistician and behavioral scientist, has been working in HIV since 1989 when he joined the Center for Biopsychosocial Study of AIDS as a statistician. His work at that Center focused on gay men and led to important subsequent research on HIV-related Bereavement and Peptide T for HIV cognitive impairment.  Later work focused on family and ecosystemic interventions for 1) drug abuse in African American and Latinx populations and 2) HIV-related mental health and medication adherence in African American women and predominately minority incarcerated men. His recent HIV work has focused on those most likely to be left behind in progress on the HIV treatment and prevention cascades. He also maintains an active research portfolio in statistical methods to predict heterogeneity in treatment response for precision medicine. He is currently MPI of the Florida Node Alliance of the Drug Abuse Treatment’s Clinical Trials Network, Co-director of CHARM and CHARM Methods core director, and an MPI on the Healing Communities Study. 

        Dr. Feaster has extensive experience mentoring investigators from diverse backgrounds who have gone on to develop successful research careers.  He has served on multiple thesis and dissertation committees.  He has mentored F-31 recipients, and minority supplement/k-awardees. His mentees now have successful research careers at various institutions across the country and many of his mentees and extended consultations have been associated with T-32s and R-25 mechanisms. 

Relevant links: 

Google Scholar Page

Viviana E. Horigian, MD, MHA – CHANGE Program Co-Director

Professor, Department of Public Health Sciences

Email: vhorigian@med.miami.edu

Pronouns: she/her/hers

        Dr. Horigian is a Latina psychiatrist with over 20 years of experience in the design and implementation of multi-site randomized clinical trials in mental health and substance abuse.  Dr. Horigian has a strong background in implementation science and her research career has been committed to improving practice through the implementation of clinical trials in real-world settings, and more recently in creating the local capacities that would allow the implementation of such trials. She was the Principal Investigator of a technology transfer project that developed the research infrastructure for the implementation of rigorous randomized clinical trials in Mexico. In this role, she mentored investigators from the National Institute of Psychiatry in Mexico on the design, implementation, safety, and interpretation of the results of RCTs in real-world treatment settings. Due to her work, she received recognition from the National Institutes of Psychiatry in Mexico for her and the Florida Node Alliance's contributions on the establishment of a Mexican Clinical Trials Network. Since then, her mentees have been able to expand the network, and demonstrated sustained scholarship through obtaining continued federal funding and publications.  She has used the same methodology for technology transfer to develop research capacity in Ecuador and Chile.

        Due to her international leadership, she was honored with the 2015 National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) International Program Award of Excellence. She is the Executive Director of the Florida Node Alliance of the Drug Abuse Treatment’s Clinical Trials Network. Dr. Horigian is currently the Director of Public Health Education, directs the Master’s in Public Health and Masters in Science in Public Health, and serves as an advisor to MPH and MSPH students. Noteworthy, Horigian established the Department of Public Health Sciences Learning Collaboratory for graduate students. The Learning Collaboratory is a partnership between students, faculty, and local community organizations, to address public health problems in underserved communities. Organized in groups, in collaboration with community organizations and guided by faculty, students lead projects to understand and better address these underserved population needs.

        Dr Horigian is the instructor of the Clinical Trials course, a required course for all trainees of this T32. This course requires the development of a randomized clinical trial and will be used by T32 trainees as the backbone for the development of their research projects. Over the years, predoctoral and doctoral students that participated in the Clinical Trials Course have used their Clinical Trials Course project proposals to develop K, and R 21 research applications under Horigian and Feaster's mentorship. 

Soyeon Ahn, PhD (she/her/hers), is an Asian American identified professor and Chair of the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies, and Director of the Statistical Supporting Unit (STAS-U) of the UM Dunspaugh-Dalton Community and Educational Well-Being Research Center. She received her Ph.D. in quantitative methods, and has specialization in research synthesis and meta-analysis in social science, statistical methodology in synthesizing studies, hierarchical linear modeling (HLM), structural equation modeling (SEM), and longitudinal data analysis for educational and psychological research. She teaches courses and regularly publishes methods papers in these and other (multivariate) areas. Dr. Ahn will lend her support to trainees consulting in biostatistical / quantitative methods. She will lead relevant seminars, be available for consultations, assist with selection of models for trainee papers, and planning of analyses for grants and future projects for T32 trainees. 

Relevant links: 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&user=Q-nHiFMAAAAJ

https://miami.pure.elsevier.com/en/persons/soyeon-ahn

Maria Alcaide, MD (she/her/hers), is a Hispanic identified Professor in Infectious Diseases, Director of the Clinical Sciences Core and the CTSI and CFAR Mentoring Programs. She oversees research for the Miami AIDS Clinical Research Unit, and is MPI on the UM Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study /Women’s Interagency HIV Study Combined Cohort Study (MACS/WIHS-CCS) and the Study of Treatment and Reproductive Outcome (STAR) Cohort. She completed an NICHD K23 on a bio-behavioral intervention for vaginal practices in HIV+ women in Zambia, and currently is PI of a NIAID-R01 on a multidisciplinary approach underlying recurrent bacterial vaginosis and HIV risk in women. Dr. Alcaide will provide mentorship and training related to multidisciplinary clinical science related to HIV prevention and treatment in women, and biobehavioral approaches to reduce STIs in HIV-infected women.

Relevant links: 

https://med.miami.edu/centers-and-institutes/center-for-aids-research

Michael Antoni, PhD is a Professor of Psychology and pioneer in the area of psychoneuroimmunology (PNI) and HIV, as well as cognitive behavioral stress management to address psychosocial components of living with HIV. Although his primary area now is cancer, he is also currently studying PNI as it applies to certain human cancers; some of his work includes HIV-1 infection. He is delineating PNI mechanisms underlying the associations between stressors and stress reduction on the one hand and immune and endocrine system changes and physical disease course on the other. Dr. Antoni, as one of the most accomplished PNI researchers in the field, will provide T32 trainees with consultation and guidance as projects relate to the interface of biomarkers and HIV related outcomes. His course on biobehavioral processes in behavioral medicine is a core course for the predoctoral students in the T32 psychology track.

Sierra Bainter, PhD is an Assistant Professor and quantitative psychologist in the Department of Psychology. Her program of methodological research is focused on two key issues; improving areas in which available methods may not be adequate for real psychological data, or in which a research question may not be addressed using standard analysis techniques. Specifically, she investigates Bayesian estimation as a tool to help overcome estimation difficulties in structural equation models (current NIMH-funded K01). Dr. Bainter has collaborated in studies of HIV prevention and treatment with the faculty of this T32 to provide guidance and analytic assistance on model building and selection, as well as accounting for missing data.  For this T32 she will provide guidance to trainees in these areas and will teach relevant coursework.

Relevant links: 

https://www.psy.miami.edu/faculty/applied-quantitative-lab/index.html

https://scholar-google-com.access.library.miami.edu/citations?user=ri-aeg0AAAAJ&hl=en

Raymond Balise, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Biostatistics, and Co-Director of the Methods Core for CHARM. He teaches classes such as Data Management and Statistical Programming, Survey of Statistical Computing, Medical Biostatistics, Case Studies in Biostatistics, and Data Science and Machine Learning. His recent work includes the development and patenting of the analytics behind SCAN360, a web portal that describes cancer rates and disease risk factors for the state of Florida.  Currently, he is developing tools to monitor rates of substance use disorder for the state of New York and using machine learning methods to model patterns of substance abuse in people seeking care for addiction to opioids. He is available to T32 trainees for general biostatistical support, multi-level modeling, psychometrics, GIS mapping, data visualization, machine learning and advanced techniques for variable selection in statistical modeling.

Relevant links:

https://scholar.google.com/citations?hl=en&tzom=240&user=LEntPQEAAAAJ

Victoria Behar-Zusman, PhD (she/her/hers), is a Latinx identified Professor in the School of Nursing and Health Studies, Director of the Developmental Core for CHARM, and a PIof the NICHD-funded Center for Latino Health Research Opportunities: CLaRO (described above), a partnership with Florida International University, which advances interventions to address HIV, substance abuse and trauma-related mental health problems among vulnerable Latino communities. Dr. Behar-Zusman also serves as Director of the Implementation Core for the Miami site of the NIH-funded Precision Medicine and Health Disparities Collaborative, a partnership with Vanderbilt University and Meharry Medical College. Dr. Behar-Zusman mentors early-stage faculty and nursing PhD students and teaches quantitative research methods and research ethics in the PhD program. She also serves as Chair of the UM Social and Behavioral Sciences Institutional Review Board. Dr. Behar-Zusman will assist T32 trainees with use of the CHARM Developmental Core services, as well as resources through CLARO and the School of Nursing. She will contribute to the weekly seminar, and as a Cuban American scholar, will provide mentorship to trainees with respect to both the research methods but also professional development for ethnic minority women in academia. 

Relevant links:

https://claro.fiu.edu

https://elcentro.sonhs.miami.edu/research/measures-library/index.html

Olveen Carrasquillo, MD is a Professor of Medicine and Public Health Sciences at the School of Medicine.  He is a Puerto Rican born physician who was raised in the Bronx. Prior to UM, Dr. Carrasquillo was Director of the Center of Excellence in Health Disparities Research at Columbia University. Dr. Carrasquillo is a national expert in minority health, health disparities, community-based participatory research, access to care and community health worker interventions.  He has over twenty years of experience leading large NIH Center grants and randomized trials, totaling over $60 million in funding.  His work includes research in diabetes, cardiovascular disease, HIV, cancer and most recently in precision medicine.  He serves on numerous NIH grant review committees, including being a regular member of the NIH study section for implementation science.  He is also active in various national organizations, including numerous current and past leadership roles in National Hispanic Medical Association and Latinos for National Health Insurance. 

Joseph De Santis, PhD (he/him/his), is an Associate Professor in the University of Miami School of Nursing and Health Studies, a Research Professor at the University of Texas at El Paso School of Nursing, and Co-Director of the CHARM Mental Health Disparities (MHD) Core. His clinical specialties include child health, psychiatric/mental health, and HIV/IDS nursing. Dr. De Santis conducts research on HIV and HIV risk in vulnerable populations e.g., transgender women and Hispanic MSM. He has served as a clinical consultant with the HRSA HIV/AIDS Bureau. He is also an expert qualitative researcher and has conducted coursework and trainings for the UM community in these methods. He is a member of the American Academy of Nursing, the American Psychiatric Nurses Association, and the Association of Nurses in AIDS Care.  

Relevant links: 

https://orcid.org/0000-0001-9144-7876

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Joseph-De-Santis

Susanne Doblecki-Lewis, MD, MSPH is an Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and is the Clinical Director for the Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Miami. Her expertise and interest is in expanding HIV treatment and prevention engagement in diverse communities. She oversees the UM PrEP clinic, has extensive experience in development, training, and implementation of PrEP protocols including direct provision of PrEP and referral models in clinical and research settings including municipal health departments, public hospital settings, and community clinics. She has ongoing clinical activities at the UM/ Jackson Memorial Hospital, at the Miami-Dade County Health Department STD Clinic and is PI of the Miami site of the COVID-19 Moderna MRNA Clinical Trial.

Audrey Harkness, PhD is a Research Assistant Professor in the Division of Prevention Science and Community Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences. Her research focuses on addressing HIV and behavioral health (mental health and substance use) disparities, primarily within sexual and gender minority (SGM) communities in general and Latinx gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men (MSM) in particular. Her research program focuses on developing culturally tailored implementation strategies to address persistent and growing HIV disparities among Latinx sexual minority men. Dr. Harkness has strong, bidirectional relationships with community partners who deliver and oversee the delivery of HIV-prevention and treatment as well as behavioral health services to SGM and Latinx communities in South Florida, facilitating her ability to support trainees in becoming community-engaged researchers

Gail Ironson, MD, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is a Co-Investigator on the Mental Health Disparities Core for CHARM. Her research has uncovered psychological and biological factors that protect the health of people with HIV. She has conducted several randomized clinical trials for both trauma treatment and stress management interventions, as well as a longitudinal study examining psychological factors in coping with HIV. She has expertise in assessment of and treatments for trauma, depression and a variety of comorbidities faced by individuals with HIV.

Daniel Jimenez, PhD (he/him/his), is a Hispanic/Latino identified Associate Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences with a secondary appointment in the Department of Public Health Sciences.  He has extensive experience in aging research and has dedicated his career to improving access and engagement in mental health services among underserved populations. His research interests include geriatric mental health services research, health promotion, multicultural mental health, and mental illness prevention. He has combined these areas of research to design and implement culturally appropriate and novel approaches to preventing mental illness in racial/ethnic minority older adults.  He is currently leading an NIMH-funded R01 aimed at evaluating the effect of a health promotion intervention tailored for older Latinos on anxiety and depression.

Deborah Jones, PhD (she/her/hers), is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and has an appointment in Psychology; she is a Co-Director in CHARM. She is co-Director of the HIV & Women Program and past co-Chair of the Developmental Core of the UM CFAR with oversight of mentoring. She has been PI and Co-PI on national and international grants on HIV/AIDS and is MPI on the Miami Multi-Center AIDS Cohort Study (MACS) and Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS) Combined Cohort Study (MACS/WIHS-CCS). For over two decades, she has worked with underserved and minority HIV positive and at-risk individuals in the USA and internationally.

Relevant links: 

http://psychiatry.med.miami.edu/research/research-programs/behavioral-sciences-program/our-faculty

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deborah-Jones-22

Mariano Kanamori, PhD is a Peruvian Assistant Professor in the Division of Prevention Science and Community Health in the Department of Public Health Sciences. He has experience designing, developing, implementing, and evaluating HIV interventions for socially and economically marginalized Latinx communities, including Latino gay, bisexual, and other men who have sex with men in Miami. Most recently, his social network research is changing the current paradigm for HIV prevention among Latinx communities in Miami by empowering them to protect their health by engaging in HIV prevention practices (e.g., condom and PrEP use). He has also used social network methods to identify how social structures and interactions blend sexual risk networks of Latino and non-Latino MSM and how sexual risk and drug use networks overlap. 

Sonjia Kenya, EdD, MS, MA (she/her/hers), is a Black Associate Professor in the Department of General Medicine in the Miller School of Medicine. Her primary research interest is reducing HIV disparities among minority populations. For over a decade, her HIV research has relied on community health workers (CHW) for implementation, and she currently leads one of the largest street-based rapid HIV testing programs in the County. As the Associate Director of CFAR’s Bio-Behavioral & Community Engagement Core, she has established numerous partnerships with local stakeholders and community-based organizations in the heart of Miami’s historically Black neighborhoods, which are among the areas with the highest HIV prevalence in the County.
 
Though HIV is her primary focus, Dr. Kenya is also dedicated to improving health disparities for all vulnerable populations, and she consistently engages in transdisciplinary collaborations addressing culturally-distinct intervention plans for non-HIV disparities research.  As the Research Officer for the Office of Diversity, Inclusion, & Community Engagement, and Director of Community Health for the Jay Weiss Institute for Health Equity, she teaches social medicine research methods and provides culturally-responsive training for students and faculty. She also oversees the research initiatives and publications for these offices. Her combined experience as a health disparities researcher, HIV service provider, and long-term community-based partner are important strengths that she shares with her mentees. Specific skills that graduate students have gained under her mentorship include drafting and submitting grant applications; analyzing qualitative and quantitative data; co-authoring academic manuscripts; and hiring and training community-based outreach workers to facilitate academic research investigations.

Relevant links: 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=HIqjeXAAAAAJ&hl=en

https://www.champ305.com/

Michael Kolber, MD, PhD is a Professor of Medicine, Department of Medicine with secondary appointments in Public Health Sciences and Microbiology and Immunology.  He is the Director of the Comprehensive AIDS Program for the Miller School of Medicine and Clinical Director of the Adult HIV Section in Infectious Diseases. He has been the Ryan White Part A Director and the Medical Director and Co-PI for the Part C award. He works closely with both the County and State Department of Health regarding all aspects of prevention and clinical activities. Additionally, he has strong ties with the Jackson Health System, the State and Local Departments of Health, as well as Federally Qualified Health Clinics in Miami-Dade County.

Maria Llabre, PhD is a Professor and Associate Chair in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences. She is also Director of Biobehavioral Statistics at the Behavioral Medicine Research Center. She teaches graduate statistics and is lead faculty in the Applied Quantitative Lab.  Her research uses latent variable models to understand change processes in cardiovascular behavioral medicine, and she has a history of research work in the area of HIV.  She is an investigator in the Hispanic Community Health Study/Study of Latinos (HCHS/SOL).  As a Cuban American female, senior faculty member, she will also provide mentorship to trainees on academic and career-oriented concerns.

Louis Herns Marcelin, PhD 

is a Haitian identified professor of social sciences at the University of Miami and Chancellor of the Interuniversity Institute for Research and Development, INURED. He is the co-founder and Director of the Global Health and Society, an interdisciplinary and cross campus graduate program at the University of Miami.  His research examines questions related to health and human security, and the roles of power, violence, and marginalization in society (particularly in Brazil, Haiti, the Dominican Republic, and the United States). In furtherance of his research interests, he was awarded various National Institutes of Health (NIH) to investigate the intersections of marginalization, health risks, drug use, gang violence, and migration processes in South Florida.  Professor Marcelin’s publications are featured in various flagship venues including American Journal of Public Health, American Anthropologist, Current Anthropology, Child Abuse and Neglect, Prehospital Disaster Medicine, Journal of Ethnicity in Substance Abuse among others.

Relevant links: 

https://www.mideq.org/en/

http://www.inured.org/

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Louis-Marcelin

Roger McIntosh, PhD is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology. He currently directs the Brain Respiration Embodiment Affect & Translational Health (BREATH) Lab. His research examines the effects of aging, stress, and chronic inflammatory immune conditions (i.e. HIV) on neuropsychological functioning. He is currently supported by an NHLBI K01 to study HIV-related changes to the central-autonomic network and associated risk for hypertension in adults. As a Black-identified emerging scholar, he also will provide mentorship on navigating an academic career for under-represented minority investigators.

Marie Guerda Nicolas, PhD is a Professor in the Department of Educational and Psychological Studies in the University of Miami School of Education and Human Development.  Originally from Haiti, her research reflects her multicultural and multilingual background, developing culturally effective mental health interventions for people of color, with a specific focus on immigrant children, adolescents, and families. She conducts research on social support networks of Caribbean populations with specific focus on Haitians; adolescents; and spirituality, social support mental health of Blacks. She lectures and writes extensively on women issues, depression and cultural interventions, social support networks of ethnic minorities, and spirituality. 

Kathryn Nowotny, PhD is Associate Professor of Medical Sociology at the University of Miami where she directs the Miami Health & Justice Lab (www.miamihealthjustice.com), currently overseeing several research and service projects related to mass incarceration and health equity. Her research uses both quantitative and qualitative methods to examine the multilevel factors that create increased risk for poor health among justice impacted people and people who use drugs. Dr. Nowotny is currently site-PI of a multi-site longitudinal cohort study (NIMHD R01) examining barriers to PrEP for HIV prevention among people recently released from prisons and jails in the South. She is Co-I on a study (NIMHD R01) examining the impact of immigration processes, including detention and deportation, on the health of immigrants, and a RADx-UP initiative (NIDA U01) focused on COVID-19 testing and prevention in correctional settings. She is also Co-Founder of the COVID Prison Project (www.covidprisonproject.com), the leading national effort to track COVID-19 outcomes and policies across U.S. prisons as well as advocating for data transparency in correctional institutions. 

Guillermo Prado, PhD is Dean of the Graduate School, Professor of Nursing and Health Studies, Public Health Sciences, and Psychology. Ethnically Cuban/Mexican, his research focuses on family-based interventions for risk-reduction in Latinx youth.  He has a strong history of mentorship, having sponsored more than a half-dozen F or K awards and numerous pre- and post-doctoral trainees.  He is the Director of the Investigator Development/Mentoring and Training Core of CLARO.  His research lab focuses on developing and evaluating culturally specific family-based preventive interventions in Latinx youth. Prado is also an expert in implementation science methods.

Allan Rodriguez, MD (he/him/his), is a Hispanic identified Professor of Clinical Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases and Public Health Sciences of Puerto Rican heritage. He leads the Behavioral/Social Science and Community Outreach Core (BSSCO) and the HIV Prevention and Health Equity Scientific Area of Research Group of the UM CFAR. He is also a Co-Director of the Developmental Core of the Center for HIV and Research in Mental Health (CHARM).  His expertise and research interest are in interventions targeting disadvantaged patients including minorities, women, substance users and persons with mental health problems to reduce health disparities. 

Relevant links:

https://med.miami.edu/centers-and-institutes/center-for-aids-research 

Steven Safren, PhD (he/him/his), is a gay identified Professor in the Department of Psychology and is the Director and PI of CHARM. He is Director of the Health Promotion and Care Lab and is a Co-Director of the UM CFAR Behavioral/Social Sciences and Community Outreach Core. His research program focuses on addressing mental health and related problems in HIV prevention and care domestically and globally. His focus is on adherence, mental health comorbidities, and integrating the treatment of psychological problems into both HIV prevention and HIV treatment/adherence approaches. Most of his HIV-prevention activities have been with sexual minority men, and his work with HIV-treatment has involved both prevention and treatment approaches along with mental health and substance use comorbidities. He has a long and substantial history of mentoring predoctoral students, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty.  

Relevant links: 

https://local.psy.miami.edu/people/faculty/ssafren/ 

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=mveeHvwAAAAJ&hl=en

https://hpac.psy.miami.edu/index.html

https://charm.miami.edu/

Sara St. George, PhD (she/her/hers), is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences at the Miller School of Medicine and an investigator at the Sylvester Comprehensive Cancer Center. Her research focuses on developing and evaluating digital family-based health promotion interventions for ethnic minority populations which integrate multiple generations (e.g., grandparents, parents, children) to improve healthy lifestyle behaviors and thereby prevent obesity, cancer, and other chronic diseases.  She developed and teaches two courses in the Department of Public Health Sciences: Qualitative Methods and Obesity and Public Health. Dr. St. George will provide mentoring and lead seminars on qualitative research methods. 

Relevant link: 

https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Sara-St-George

https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=T5JocecAAAAJ&hl=en&oi=ao

Stephen Symes, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Department of Medicine. As Program Director for the Jay Weiss Residency in Global Health and Social Medicine, he developed a pathway to train future physician leaders in global and domestic health, preparing them to effect change in health and social policy. As a Black-identified physician-scientist, Associate Director of the Internal Medicine Residency, and long-standing member of the Admissions Committee for the Medical School, he is well positioned to help identify and mentor trainees for the proposed T32.

Jose Szapocznik, PhD is Professor of Public Health Sciences, Architecture, Psychology, and Educational Research & Counseling Psychology (in the schools of Medicine, Architecture, Arts and Sciences, and Education, respectively) and is Latino/Cuban-identified. He is founding director of the CTSI. He serves as MPI for the NIDA-funded Florida Node Alliance of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN).  Currently the Florida Node Alliance is involved with several multi-site clinical trials, which presents an excellent opportunity for the trainees from this program to gain experience on clinical trials. In addition to the CTN, his other research involves addressing the health of underrepresented racial and ethnic minorities. 

Hansel Tookes, MD, MPH is an Assistant Professor, Division of Infectious Diseases, Department of Medicine and is Medical Director and Founder of the IDEA Syringe Services Program, Florida’s first legal syringe services program. He is Principal Investigator for the University of Miami Harm Reduction Research Group. His research interests include behavioral interventions and innovative approaches to HIV prevention. He has extensive experience with patients living with HIV, low socioeconomic status, and substance use disorders. As an emerging, Black-identified scholar, Tookes also can assist underrepresented trainees with navigating career and academic situations as a person of color in the medical community.  

Stephen M Weiss, PhD, MPH is Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences in the Miller School of Medicine with an appointment in Medicine. He is a clinical health psychologist and has been PI/Co-PI for international HIV primary and secondary prevention studies in Zambia, South Africa, Argentina, India and multisite US-based research programs since 1996. His early research at NHLBI focused on cardiovascular health and disease; for the past 30 years his focus has been on HIV prevention. He leads an NIMH-funded R01 and R34 aimed at availability and acceptability of adult and infant medical male circumcision for HIV prevention in Zambia using dissemination and implementation science methodologies. 

Joseph West, ScD, MSc is a Voluntary Professor in the Department of Public Health Sciences and is Director of the Research Program on Community and Equity at the Florida Institute Health for Innovation. He is a recognized leader in population management, outcomes-based healthcare, value-based models, and LEAN processes. He has expertise in meta-analysis, statistical planning, data management, statistical methods and models, and clinical epidemiology. His research focus is responsive trauma care and sustainable community intervention models for healthy communities. He is specifically focused on community-based initiatives and care strategies for Medicaid-eligible, low-income, and uninsured populations. He currently leads the Public Health Seminar for medical students and advises research and methods for predoctoral students.  He will provide mentorship to trainees on research methods and developing community-based initiatives for vulnerable populations. As a Black-identified leader in his field, he also will provide career-oriented mentorship to trainees.