Jasmine Abrams, PhD
Dr. Jasmine Abrams is an international behavioral research scientist with nearly 15 years of experience conducting research with marginalized groups of women. The goal of her research is to identify psychosociocultural and systemic factors that influence sexual, reproductive, and maternal health outcomes and to develop and implement strategies to prevent adverse outcomes and disparities. Dr. Abrams has extensive expertise in qualitative research, mixed-methods research, translational research, prevention science, and intervention program development, adaptation, and evaluation. Ongoing projects include: 1) a mixed methods intervention study aimed at reducing HIV and class related stigma among maternal healthcare providers in Haiti, 2) a qualitative study focused on identifying facilitators and barriers to participation of individuals who identify as Black, Indigenous, and People of Color (BIPOC) in sexual health and fertility research, and 3) two mixed methods studies examining implementation of reproductive and maternal health promotion interventions.
Frederick Altice, M.D.
Dr. Altice's primary research focuses on the interface between infectious diseases, mental illness and substance use disorders. His projects are both domestic (Connecticut, Massachusetts Washington, D.C.) and international (Malaysia, Peru, Ukraine and Russia) involving behavioral, biomedical and combination interventions to promote HIV prevention and treatment, with an emphasis on the interface of infectious diseases (HIV, TB, HCV), substance abuse. There are also numerous projects that involve interventions that focus on multi-level structures with the criminal justice systems in the U.S., Malaysia, Eastern Europe and Central Asia (six countries) and Peru. HIV prevention interventions include behavioral, biomedical and combination biomedical/behavioral interventions, including technology-based (mHealth) interventions and medication-assisted therapies.
J. Lucian (Luke) Davis, M.D.
Dr. Davis a pulmonary/critical care physician and epidemiologist with an interest in pulmonary infections, especially tuberculosis (TB). His clinical and translational research program seeks to improve evaluation and diagnosis of TB in low-income countries and other settings with constrained health resources. He has a particular interest in translating evidence-based clinical and public health interventions into routine practice, through the application of novel information and communications technologies and other knowledge-translation techniques from the emerging field of implementation science. These include the application of community engagement strategies, mixed methods, and theories of behavior change to identify barriers to the delivery of high-quality TB care and to design targeted interventions to address them. His current projects include (1) mHealth for Home Contact Investigation in Kampala, Uganda – This community-based household RCT, funded through the NIH Dissemination and Implementation Research in Health (DIRH) program, is examining the effectiveness, context, and potential impact of short-messaging services (SMS)-supported, home-based TB and HIV contact investigation, as compared to standard TB contact investigation. We are also evaluating the feasibility, acceptability, and impact of other mobile technologies including biometrics, multi-media enabled counseling, and mobile performance feedback in the delivery of community-based of HIV and TB evaluation services. (2) Pediatric TB Guideline Implementation in Uganda – In collaboration with colleagues from Makerere University in Uganda, and with support from USAID and NIH, we are using mixed methods to collect data on common barriers to and enablers of adherence to consensus guidelines on pediatric TB evaluation and management in Uganda. We will then apply evidence-based theories of behavior change to categorize these barriers and enablers and design targeted interventions to improve quality of care.
Eva Jennifer Edelman, M.D., M.H.S.
Dr. Edelman is a general internist certified in HIV and Addiction Medicine. Her clinical and research focus relates to optimizing HIV prevention and treatment as it relates to substance use, especially opioid and alcohol use. Her work has focused on studies examining the impact of prescribed and illicit opioid use on health outcomes among people living with HIV, interventions to address substance use in HIV treatment settings, and implementation of evidence-based strategies to promote HIV prevention among individuals with substance use (e.g. HIV testing, partner notification, pre-exposure prophylaxis). She is PI on a NIDA-funded R01 to evaluate trajectories of non-medical use of prescription opioids in HIV and co-investigator on several NIDA and NIAAA-funded multi-site intervention studies.
David A. Fiellin, M.D.
Dr. Fiellin's scholarly work focusses on the interface between primary care, HIV and addiction. He conducts research on the transfer of substance abuse treatment strategies from specialized settings to office-based, primary care, Emergency Department and HIV specialty settings. He is the Director of the Community Research and Implementation Core and Associate Director of the Clinical and Health Services Research Core at CIRA.
Gregg Gonsalves, Ph.D.
Gregg Gonsalves is an Assistant Professor in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases as well as an Associate (Adjunct) Professor of Law and Research Scholar in Law at Yale Law School, co-director of the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health Global Health Justice Partnership and the Yale Law School/Yale School of Public Health/Yale Medical School Collaboration for Research Integrity and Transparency. His research focuses on the use of quantitative models for improving the response to epidemic diseases. For more than 20 years, he worked on HIV/AIDS and other global health issues with several organizations, including the AIDS Coalition to Unleash Power, the Treatment Action Group, Gay Men’s Health Crisis, and the AIDS and Rights Alliance for Southern Africa. He was also a fellow at the Open Society Foundations and in the Department of Global Health and Social Medicine at Harvard Medical School from 2011-2012. He is a 2011 graduate of Yale College and received his PhD from Yale Graduate School of Arts and Sciences/School of Public Health in 2017.
Robert Heimer, Ph.D.
Dr. Heimer's major research efforts include scientific investigation of the mortality and morbidity associated with injection drug use. His current work focuses on the contexts and consequences of drug abuse in the U.S. and overseas in Russia, Estonia, Lebanon, and Vietnam. The research focuses on attempts to provide health providers and prevention practitioners with information needed to assist their educational and advocacy efforts. Dr. Heimer's current projects include (1) laboratory-based assessment of the epidemiological risks for transmission of the hepatitis C virus (HCV) through unsafe drug injection and evaluate methods to reduce transmission; (2) the influences on HIV prevalence and service access among IDUs in Russia and Estonia, and; (3) drug policy, incarceration, community re-entry, and race disparities in HIV/AIDS in the U.S., with particular focus on the interconnections among drug policies, (4) HIV risk, incidence, and prevention in Lebanon among at-risk populations including people who inject drugs and men who have sex with men, (5) access to medical treatment for HIV and hepatitis C infections in small southern New England cities, (6) assessment of and responses to the large increases in opioid related overdose mortality in Connecticut, especially in non-urban locales.
Skyler Jackson, Ph.D.
Dr. Skyler Jackson (he/him) conducts research focusing on the ways individuals' social identities (e.g., race, gender, sexual orientation) shape their everyday lives and influence health and well-being. In particular, he is interested in how experiences of stigma—if not adequately coped with—interfere with psychological functioning and contribute to health disparities.
Relying on a broad range of methodological approaches (e.g., microlongitudinal, experimental, qualitative), Dr. Jackson's current projects examine complex, understudied manifestations of stigma across sexual, racial, and gender minority populations, including (a) intersectional stress among individuals holding multiple marginalized identities (e.g., LGBTQ+ people of color, Black women), and (b) border identity stress among populations holding identities that defy binary categorization (e.g., bisexuals, multiracial people, nonbinary individuals).
Increasingly, Dr. Jackson's work has focused on the development of culturally-attuned, stigma coping interventions to address the intersectional determinants of health among multiply-marginalized populations. Supporting his research in this area, Dr. Jackson recently received an NIMH K01 Career Development Award entitled, "Intersectional stigma, mental health, and HIV risk among US GBM of color" (1K01MH122316-01A1).
Danya Keene, Ph.D.
Dr. Keene's mixed-methods research explores how social policies contribute to health inequality, with a particular focus on issues related to housing, neighborhoods and place. Ongoing projects include a pilot study to describe the HIV risk environment surrounding MSM living in three high-risk small urban environments in Connecticut. Determining the unique features of small urban areas that contribute to MSM's increasing HIV risk represents a critical next step in the local production of effective prevention interventions for this increasingly vulnerable segment of the population.
Trace Kershaw, Ph.D.
Dr. Kershaw’s research examines how social (e.g., social networks, intimate partners) and structural (place, norms) factors ) influence sexual risk (HIV, STI, pregnancy), substance use, and mental health of adolescents and emerging adults. (1) a longitudinal dyadic study that examines relationship changes among young couples transitioning to parenthood and how relationship changes influenced their HIV/STI risk, maternal-child health, and mental health; (2) a multi-level intervention (individual and community components) to reduce sexual risk and community stigma and to increase utilization of care for HIV-positive MSM in India; (3) a longitudinal social network study that assesses how young men interact within social networks and how those interactions influence their HIV and drug use risk behaviors by examining data from their cell phones (e.g., phone calls, text messages, GPS coordinates), and social network sites (e.g., Twitter, Instagram, Facebook); and (4) a new R01 exploring how social and geographic context influence sexual risk and substance use of MSM by tracking GPS coordinates and use of dating apps (e.g., Grindr) and asking questions related to those risk environments when they go to risky locations. For more, see https://ysph.yale.edu/profile/trace-kershaw/.
Kaveh Khoshnood, Ph.D., M.P.H.
Kaveh Khoshnood, PhD is an Associate Professor at Yale School of Public Health with over two decades of experience conducting epidemiological research on HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis among key at risk populations in the United States and in resource-poor countries. Dr. Khoshnood's research interests are threefold: 1) epidemiology, prevention and control of HIV/AIDS; 2) ethical issues in HIV/AIDS, conflict-focused and student-led research; 3) humanitarian response to violent conflicts and the health of refugees and displaced populations. Dr. Khoshnood has ongoing research projects focused on these topics in Lebanon and China.
Sarah Lowe, PhD
Sarah Lowe, Ph.D., is a clinical psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Her research focuses on the long-term mental health consequences of a range of potentially traumatic events, as well as the impact of such events on other domains of functioning, such as physical health, social relationships, and economic wellbeing. Her work explores the mechanisms leading from trauma exposure to symptoms, and the role of factors at various ecological levels – from genetics to neighborhoods – in shaping risk and resilience. She uses a range of methodologies to achieve her research aims, including structural equation modeling, latent growth curve analysis, geospatial modeling, and qualitative analysis, among others. Dr. Lowe received her Ph.D. from the University of Massachusetts Boston and completed a postdoctoral fellowship in the Psychiatric Epidemiology Training program at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. She previously held an appointment in the Department of Psychology at Montclair State University, where she played a key role in developing the department’s first doctoral program.
Lynn T. Matthews, MD, MPH
Dr. Lynn T. Matthews is an ID-trained physician-scientist funded since 2011 to develop, test, and implement HIV testing, prevention and treatment interventions in Uganda, South Africa, and the U.S. Southeast. She currently lead two R34 and three R01 studies and have over 115 peer-reviewed publications, including 75+ as first or senior author. Her work informs global and national HIV guidelines and is recognized through invited talks, workshops, and service on the U.S. guidelines panel for HIV treatment and prevention in pregnancy.
Mentorship is central to my work: I’ve supported over 50 trainees to publish 82+ papers and secure developmental and independent funding. In 2024, I was recognized with a UAB School of Medicine Dean’s Excellence Award in Mentoring and secured K24 funding from NIAID.
Ryan McNeil, PhD
Dr. Ryan McNeil joined the Yale School of Medicine in December 2019 from the University of British Columbia and British Columbia Centre on Substance Use, where he was supported by a Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research Scholar Award and Canadian Institutes of Health Research New Investigator (CIHR) Award. Through his National Institutes of Health and CIHR-funded community-engaged qualitative and ethnographic research, he examines how forces operating within the risk environments of people who use drugs shape risk and harm. Dr. McNeil is Principal Investigator of multiple grants examining: (1) social, structural, and environmental influences on the implementation and effectiveness of harm reduction and addiction treatment interventions, including supervised consumption services; (2) the influence of housing and housing-based interventions on overdose-related risks; (3) approaches to the management of stimulant use disorders. Dr. McNeil regularly provides expert advice to health care organizations and governments on the development, implementation, and optimization of harm reduction and addiction treatment interventions. Pursuant to the goal of meaningfully involving people who use drugs in all stages of the research process, he actively collaborates with community-based organizations, including peer-driven drug user, sex worker, and tenant rights organizations, to align his research with community priorities and provide opportunities for people with lived experience to co-lead and engage in research. Furthermore, Dr. McNeil is the co-creator and scientific lead of Crackdown, a podcast launched in January 2019 to mobilize research and amplify the voices of people who use drugs. This innovative media collaboration has been called the "podcast most likely to save lives" and has received the Radio Impact Award from the Third Coast International Audio Festival, Canadian Hillman Prize, and a silver medal from the New York Festivals Radio Awards.
Jaimie Paul Meyer, MD, MS, FACP
I am an Assistant Professor in Infectious Diseases at Yale School of Medicine. I completed my clinical training and maintain board certification in Internal Medicine and Infectious Diseases, along with DEA certification to prescribe buprenorphine and probuphine. My clinical work has included an HIV/Hepatitis C continuity clinic at York Correctional Institute for Women, the only criminal justice facility for women in the state of Connecticut, and a community-based women’s health-focused HIV clinic, which inform my investigative work. My research career to date has focused on issues related to HIV prevention and treatment among women with and at-risk of HIV in criminal justice settings, especially as it is intertwined with and complicated by substance use disorders and intimate partner violence. I have published original research on these topics in a broad array of peer-reviewed journals, collaborating with interdisciplinary teams of scientists. As a junior investigator, I was awarded a Bristol Myers-Squibb Virology Fellow Award and a Patterson Trust Award in Clinical Research for my retrospective work on HIV treatment outcomes among incarcerated and re-incarcerated men and women in Connecticut. I am a current recipient of a NIDA Patient-Oriented Career Development K23 Award for my research on gender differences in HIV treatment outcomes among people leaving jail and adaptation of an HIV risk reduction intervention for women on probation. I am also the recent recipient of a Gilead Investigator Sponsored Research Award to evaluate feasibility of PrEP dissemination among justice-involved women and their risk networks.
LaRon E. Nelson, PhD, RN, FNP, FNAP, FNYAM, FAAN
LaRon E. Nelson, PhD, RN, FNP, FNAP, FNYAM, FAAN is the inaugural Associate Dean for Global Health & Equity at Yale School of Nursing (YSN) and also joins YSN as an Independence Foundation Associate Professor of Nursing. He is a leading expert in implementation science and HIV prevention within African and African diaspora communities, including communities in the United States, Canada, and Ghana. His current research investigates the implementation and effectiveness of the Client Centered Care Coordination (C4) intervention for supporting the scale-up of HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) as a strategy to reduce the number of new HIV infections among black men who have sex with men in New York and Toronto, Canada.
Ijeoma Opara, PhD, LMSW, MPH
Dr. Ijeoma Opara is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health and the director of The Substance Abuse and Sexual Health (SASH) Lab (www.oparalab.org). Dr. Opara defines herself as a community-based participatory researcher with experience in working with youth and community organizations dedicated to reducing substance use in urban communities. Dr. Opara's research focuses on strengths-based approaches for urban youth substance use and HIV prevention. Her second line of research involves highlighting racial and gender specific strategies in prevention research for Black girls. Her current projects include the: (1) Paterson Prevention Project, which is a 5-year study funded by the NIH Director's Early Independence Award. The Paterson Prevention Project is a community-based study that focuses on neighborhoods impact on substance use and mental health for urban racial-ethnic minority youth in Paterson, New Jersey. (2) The Dreamer Girls Project is a strengths-based HIV/STI and drug use prevention program that seeks to improve health outcomes for Black girls. The Dreamer Girls Project is currently recruiting for its formative study which will inform the development of a HIV/STI and substance use prevention program for Black girls. Dr. Opara is also involved in other studies that focus on using multiple sources of data and methodologies to inform and develop strengths-based substance use prevention interventions that involve community support, promote racial-ethnic identity and pride, strengthen social support and youth empowerment for Black and Hispanic youth and their families.
John Pachankis, Ph.D.
Dr. Pachankis' studies seek to identify the psychological processes and social contextual factors explaining LGBT individuals’ disproportionate experiences with various adverse mental and physical health outcomes. Ongoing projects include the development of an intervention to facilitate stigma coping among gay and bisexual men to improve mental health and reduce HIV risk; analyzing data on minority stress, mental health, and sexual compulsivity for intervention development; collecting and analyzing 6-year longitudinal data on young gay and bisexual men's mental health; examining social ecological influences (e.g., stigma, place, social networks) on gay and bisexual men's health.
S. Raquel Ramos, PhD, MBA, MSN, FNYAM, FAHA, FAAN
Dr. Ramos' program of research is focused in three distinct, yet interrelated, areas relating to HIV health equity: 1) biomedical HIV prevention; 2) cardiovascular disease (CVD) and HIV-related comorbidity prevention; and 3) formative and technological consumer health informatics approaches to informed decision making in gay, bisexual, and queer-identified men of color living with or at-risk of HIV. Her formal training and expertise in consumer health informatics have cultivated research questions on how both formative and technology-enable behavioral interventions can inform sexual minority men of color about decision-making on HIV prevention and CVD prevention for persons living with HIV. Currently, Ramos is funded on two projects using mixed methods for CVD prevention. The first project is a mixed methods intervention mapping protocol study. The second study is a 5-year NHLBI-funded career development award that uses a virtual environment (gaming) for CVD and comorbidity prevention in sexual minority men of color living with HIV. Students working Dr. Ramos have opportunities for publication, data analysis, qualitative and quantitative data collection, and virtual environment health education content creation.
Yusuf Ransome, MPH., DrPH.
Dr. Ransome research focuses on two broad areas. The first is social determinants of sexual health, and HIV-related outcomes, specifically late HIV diagnosis. That interdisciplinary research draws upon constructs from sociology, political science, and utilizes methodological tools from health economics and epidemiology to model clinical HIV-related outcomes. For example, in a recently published study in AIDS, Dr. Ransome documented that expanded HIV testing coverage was significantly associated with lower rates of late HIV diagnosis. In one of the first US-based studies on the topic, Dr. Ransome's work showed that several social capital indicators were significantly associated with lower late HIV diagnosis rates.
Sandra Springer, MD
Dr. Springer's research interests include improving adherence to antiretrovirals and drug treatment for HIV infected men and women with co-occurring substance use disorders and mental illness. Her clinical research includes relapse prevention to opioid and alcohol use using substance dependence pharmacotherapies including buprenorphine and naltrexone among HIV+ released prisoners. She is an NIH-funded researcher including PI on K02 Independent Scientist Award from NIDA, a K23 award from NIDA, 3 R01s ( NIDA and NIAAA) and a Co-I on two R01s.
Tami P. Sullivan, Ph.D.
Dr. Sullivan's program of research centers on individual- and system-level factors that affect the mental and physical health of women victims of intimate partner violence (IPV). At the individual level, she conducts risk and protective factor research and is particularly interested in applying micro-longitudinal designs such as experience sampling methods and conducting research that informs the development of interventions to be implemented in community settings. Specifically, Dr. Sullivan focuses on advancing knowledge of IPV, posttraumatic stress, substance use, and HIV/sexual risk – as well as other co-occurring problems. At the system-level, she focuses on understanding the capacity of systems (e.g., criminal justice system) to meet the unique needs of IPV-exposed women.
Emily Wang, MD, MAS
Emily Wang is an associate professor in the Yale School of Medicine and directs the new SEICHE Center for Health and Justice. The SEICHE Center is a collaboration between the Yale School of Medicine and Yale Law School working to stimulate community transformation by identifying the legal, policy, and practice levers that can improve the health of individuals and communities impacted by mass incarceration. She leads the Health Justice Lab research program, which receives National Institutes of Health funding to investigate how incarceration influences chronic health conditions, including cardiovascular disease, cancer, and opioid use disorder, and uses a participatory approach to study interventions which mitigate the impacts of incarceration. As an internist, she has cared for thousands of individuals with a history of incarceration and is co-founder of the Transitions Clinic Network, a consortium of 40 community health centers nationwide dedicated to caring for individuals recently released from correctional facilities by employing community health workers with histories of incarceration. Dr. Wang has served on the National Academy of Sciences/Institute of Medicine's Health and Incarceration Workshop, Means of Violence Workshop, and the Steering Committee on Improving Collection of Indicators of Criminal Justice System Involvement in Population Health Data Programs. Her work been published in the Lancet, JAMA, American Journal of Public Health, and Health Affairs, and showcased in national outlets such as the New York Times, NPR, and CNN. Dr. Wang has an AB from Harvard University, an MD from Duke University, and a MAS from the University of California, San Francisco.
Katie Wang, Ph.D.
Dr. Katie Wang is a social psychologist and assistant professor in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at Yale School of Public Health. Her research broadly focuses on the role of stigma as a psychosocial determinant of mental and behavioral health disparities. She received a K01 mentored scientist career development award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse to investigate the associations among mental illness stigma, emotion dysfunction (i.e., intense, prolonged negative affect and/or difficulties in regulating one's emotions), and substance use among adults with depression. Some methodological approaches utilized to accomplish this research include psychophysiological assessments (e.g., heart rate variability, salivary cortisol) and ecological momentary assessment (e.g., daily diaries). Dr. Wang is also interested in understanding and addressing the impact of stigma on other marginalized populations, including people with disabilities, sexual minorities, and people with substance use disorders.
Jeffrey Wickersham, Ph.D.
Dr. Wickersham is the Principal Investigator on a 5-year grant from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (Grant# K01DA038529) examining combination biomedical and behavioral approaches to HIV prevention transgender women in Malaysia. Specifically, his work is focused on the development and evaluation of biomedical and behavioral interventions to address HIV prevention and substance abuse treatment among sex workers. His work targets both cisgender female and transgender women in the sex work industry in Southeast Asia. Broadly, his work seeks to understand the effect of gender differences in substance use etiology, drug and sex risk taking behavior, and to develop interventions sensitive to gender-specific needs to improve HIV and substance dependence outcomes.
