Racial and ethnic diversity among HIV researchers is at a low and undesirable level. The Fostering Diversity in HIV Research Program is supported by the National Institutes of Health (R25MH119857) and designed to help overcome some of the barriers underrepresented in medicine/public health (URM) trainees face, thus advancing their careers and enriching scientific discovery. The program provides structured mentoring from faculty at Mass General Hospital and Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health to create an environment welcoming for URM trainees and supportive of rigorous research. It involves formal didactics and community of practice events (once each month), as well as high quality mentoring tailored to each individual trainee and their stage of training. Funding is available to support research, as well as enable conference attendance, travel (if needed), and open source manuscript publication. Program participation is expected for at least one year, but is encouraged to last as long as desired by the trainee.
Trainee research will address the following key areas of the HIV continuum of care both domestically and globally:
Aharisi Bonner is an MPH candidate in Health Policy at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She obtained her Bachelors in Urban Studies and Sociology from Barnard College, Columbia University. Aharisi’s professional background consists of examining social determinants of health and researching reproductive health policies that expand and restrict access to reproductive healthcare services. She is passionate about health insurance policy and interested in researching the intersection between HIV and insurance coverage.
Aliya Moreira is a master’s degree candidate in public health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health specializing in global health and infectious disease epidemiology as well as a medical student at the University of Michigan Medical School. She plans to pursue a career as an infectious disease physician. She is interested in mental health issues for people with HIV and in particular, stigma among adolescents affected by HIV.
Lerato Magosi is a statistical geneticist interested in how human genomes contribute to susceptibility to inherited diseases and how pathogen genomes contribute to the spread of infectious disease. During her DPhil in Cardiovascular Medicine at Oxford University she developed statistical methods to dissect heterogeneity in genetic association meta-analyses. Now at the Harvard School of Public Health she uses a combination of computational, statistical and phylogenetic methods to investigate HIV transmission dynamics in the context of HIV prevention trials in sub-Saharan Africa.
Mariana Meireles is a second year PhD student in Population Health Sciences concentrating in Epidemiology. Before joining HSPH, she worked at the HIV Program at the Ministry of Health of Brazil, where her work focused mostly on the clinical monitoring of HIV and HIV surveillance in the country. She has a BS in Pharmacy and a MSc in Epidemiology of Infectious and Parasitic Diseases from University of Brasilia.
Tiffany Lemon is a native of Opelousas, Louisiana and a doctoral candidate studying epidemiology at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Her research interests include studying the impacts of psychosocial and sociopolitical factors that drive HIV disease progression and health inequities among marginalized populations, including individuals living in the southeast US and those impacted by the criminal justice system.
Valentina was born in Colombia but was raised in South Florida where she graduated from the University of Miami. She is now a second year Master’s of Science student in the Global Health and Population department at the Harvard School of Public Health. She is a Harvard Presidential Scholar and also serves as an Equity, Diversity, & Inclusion (EDI) fellow for the Office of Diversity & Inclusion. She is passionate about maternal health and women’s reproductive health in LMICs as well as the intersection of HIV and implementation science. On her free time, she enjoys traveling, going to the beach, and playing with her newly adopted dog.
Njambi Mathenge is currently a cardiology fellow, and chief fellow, within the Division of Cardiology at the Massachusetts General Hospital. She received her medical degree with honors at St. George’s University School of Medicine in Grenada, West Indies, completed residency and chief residency in Internal Medicine at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School, and a Master in Public Health degree at the Rutgers School of Public Health. As a burgeoning global cardiologist and clinical researcher, her current mentored research is focused on investigating the prevalence and determinants of cardiac dysfunction among people living with and without HIV in rural Uganda. She is a recipient of the HBNU Fogarty Global Health Fellowship awarded by the NIH Fogarty International Center in support of this work, including expanding collaborative capacity building initiatives to improve heart failure systems of care in Uganda.EVENTS
TBA
last updated 5/19/2021
MENTORS IN THE FOSTERING DIVERSITY PROGRAM
RESEARCH OPPORTUNTIES (Links to external programs)
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last updated 5/19/2021
CONTACT
Please reach out to Program Manager Lindsey Garrison (legarrison@mgh.Harvard.edu) with any questions.