Pamina M. Gorbach, MHS, DrPH
pgorbach@ucla.edu
Dr. Gorbach’s research focuses on bio-behavioral dynamics of HIV transmission and acquisition, especially around substance abuse. She is a Professor at the University of California, Los Angeles in the Department of Epidemiology, Fielding School of Public Health and in the Division of Infectious Diseases, David Geffen School of Medicine and is co-director of the UCLA Center for AIDS Research Program on Biobehavioral Epidemiology and Substance Use. In Los Angeles, she is currently the PI of a NIDA funded research platform involving a cohort with a large biorepository entitled known as “M Study” and surveillance of anal HPV among YMSM. Most recently Dr. Gorbach with Suzanne Siminski from Frontier Science as co-principle investigator was awarded the Collaborating Consortium of Cohorts NIDA Producing Opportunities (C3PNO) to stimulate science utilizing data and specimens across ten NIDA funded North American of HIV infected and at risk longitudinal cohorts by creating a virtual repository and mechanisms to access common data elements. Dr. Gorbach has also been involved in research and training in Cambodia since 1997 where she heads a Fogarty supported training program in HIV/AIDS. She is also co-PI with Dr. Judy Currier of the NIMH supported Postdoctoral Fellowship Training Program in Global HIV Prevention Research at UCLA. Her global health experience includes Cambodia, Vietnam, Peru, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Brazil, Mali, Malawi, South Africa, and Ghana. To learn more about Dr. Gorbach and her work, please click here.
Grace Aldrovandi, MD
Dr. Aldrovandi provides clinical and laboratory management and measurement expertise. Specifically, she collaborates on projects involving immunology, microbiome, HIV virology, and specimen collection/banking. Dr. Aldrovandi is a physician scientist who has been involved in multi-center clinical studies for over 20 years. She is currently PI of the IMPAACT and ACTG Laboratory Centers and in this role provides scientific leadership, technical, regulatory, and administrative oversight over all laboratory studies performed in the network. She also sits on various cross-DAIDS network committees to harmonize policies and procedures for immunology, virology, pharmacology, clinical laboratories and central repositories. Dr. Aldrovandi has also been Chair, Co-Chair, or Protocol Virologist on numerous clinical trials within IMPAACT, ATN and R01 funded studies. She has had a laboratory for almost 15 years and where she oversaw the development of many clinical assays, including the development and validation of multiple quantitative PCR assays. She is the mSTUDY biorepository director and serves on the C3PNO Internal Scientific Advisory Board (ISAB).
Ronald Brookmeyer, PhD
Dr. Brookmeyer, Professor of Biostatistics in UCLA’s Fielding School of Public Health, has been a leader in statistical methods for HIV/AIDS research for over two decades, particularly with regards to incidence estimation. Dr. Brookmeyer has vast experience in HIV/AIDS statistical modelling and substance use research and is currently a co-Investigator and statistician on the NIDA U01 cohort, mSTUDY. A main theme of his work concerns statistical and quantitative approaches for measuring the health of populations. As such, he develops statistical methods and models for tracking and forecasting health and HIV disease, and for designing and analyzing epidemiological studies and clinical trials. He was elected to the National Academy of Medicine (Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences in 2007 and received the 2015 Nathan Mantel Lifetime Achievement Award from the American Statistical Association. He also serves on the C3PNO ISAB.
Judith Currier, MD
Dr. Currier is an internationally recognized expert in the treatment of HIV infection and management of HIV complications to provide clinical expertise and guidance. She has extensive experience in clinical trial design, implementation, and analysis. Chief of the UCLA Division of Infectious Diseases, national Vice-Chair of the ACTG, and PI of the UCLA AIDS Prevention and Treatment Clinical Trials Unit. She is co-PI with Gorbach on the T32 for Global HIV Prevention. She is also on the C3PNO ISAB and mSTUDY’s Scientific Advisory Boards. She has guided the projects in conducting and interpreting the results of HIV clinical research.
Jennifer Fulcher, MD, PhD
Dr. Fulcher is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. She has extensive expertise in mucosal assays microbiome research. Dr. Fulcher works in close consultation with Dr. Aldrovandi and will provide advice regarding sample acquisition, storage and other aspects of study design related to bio-samples. She also provides guidance related to the assessment and measurement of clinical outcomes. Dr. Fulcher is a Practicing Physician at the Veterans Administration (VA) and serves as a recruitment liaison to the VA.
Marjan Javanbakht, MPH, PhD
javan@ucla.edu
Dr. Javanbakht joined the faculty at the UCLA School of Public Health in 2006 and is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Epidemiology. Prior to joining the faculty at UCLA, she served as an epidemiologist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health, Sexually Transmitted Disease Program. She completed her doctoral studies at the University of California, Los Angeles and her Master’s degree at Yale University. Her research focuses on individual and contextual factors that place people at increased risk for sexually transmitted infections (STI), including HIV. Current research includes sexual risk behaviors among young people attending STD clinics, transmission behaviors among men recently infected with HIV, as well as rectal hygiene practices that may increase the risk of STI/HIV transmission. She previously investigated the epidemiology of anal intercourse among women as well as an examination of the context in which non-coital activities may increase the risk of STIs in women. She has also conducted a number of clinical epidemiology studies including an examination of factors associated with adherence to antiretroviral medications, the epidemiology of antiretroviral drug resistance, as well as clinical outcomes and laboratory monitoring for HIV-positive patients. She has directed and collaborated on a number of federally (NIH), state (California HIV/AIDS Research Program), and foundation (amfAR) funded research projects. To learn more about Dr. Javanbakht and her work, please click here.
Nina Harawa, PhD
Dr. Harawa is an Associate Professor-in-Residence with the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and an Associate Professor with Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science, where she leads CDU’s HIV Cluster. Trained in Epidemiology, Dr. Harawa’s research involves understanding trends in HIV and other sexually transmitted infections and developing effective, culturally relevant interventions for prevention, care, and treatment. She has conducted innovative research with a variety of populations – including high-risk African American men, sexually active African American and Latina women, older adults, and incarcerated and post-incarcerated men. She currently co-leads a multi-site NIDA-funded study examining the impacts of incarceration and related interventions and policies on HIV in Black men who have sex with men. She also serves as one of the Principal Investigators on a new NIDA-funded study to promote linkage to and retention in HIV care for young MSM following release from jail.
Steve Shoptaw, PhD
Dr. Shoptaw is a licensed psychologist and is the new Center Director for CHIPTS. He is Professor in the UCLA Departments of Family Medicine and Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences and Vice Chair of Research in Family Medicine. Dr. Shoptaw has a portfolio of work that focuses on the treatment of addiction and HIV prevention in the context of addiction in the Western U.S. where stimulant use is the single strongest predictor of HIV transmission. Dr. Shoptaw is a member of the DAIDS-funded, HIV Prevention Trials Network (HPTN) Executive Committee, and Clinical Site Leader for several HPTN studies, including HPTN 061, which documented that high-risk Black men who have sex with men (MSM) have 7% incidence in Los Angeles. As high rates of stimulant and alcohol use link with new infections in his studies, Dr. Shoptaw also is MPI on a 5-year cooperative agreement (U01 DA036267; the mSTUDY) to establish a cohort of MSM of color to investigate interactions between non-injection use of methamphetamine, cocaine, opiates and binge drinking and HIV transmission dynamics.
Affiliated Postdoctoral Trainees & Visiting Scholars
- Chukwemeka Okafor, PhD
- Michael Li, PhD
- Janine Trevillyan, MD
- Sae Takada, MD