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HIV Center News Briefs
Fellows Graduation
Left to Right: NYSPI Director Jeffrey
Lieberman, M.D., HIV Center Director Anke Ehrhardt,
Ph.D., Stephanie Marhefka, Ph.D., Jenny Higgins, Ph.D.,
and HIV Center Training Director Theo Sandfort, Ph.D.
(Photo by Eve Vagg)
This June, two Fellows graduated from the Behavioral
Sciences Research Training Program in HIV Infection
sponsored by the HIV Center.
Stephanie
Marhefka, Ph.D. is now an assistant professor, on
tenure track, at the University of South Florida
College of Public Health, Department of Community and
Family Health, in Tampa. Marhefka will be continuing
her research in areas related to care, treatment, and
secondary prevention among children and youth living
with HIV. While at the HIV Center, she worked on
research examining psychological and sexual development
of adolescents who are infected with or affected by
HIV, as well as studies with youth living with perinatally
acquired HIV and their families.
Jenny Higgins,
Ph.D. accepted a research position in contraceptive
technology at Princeton University. She will be
continuing her work on sexual pleasure, sexual risk
taking, and pregnancy and HIV/STI prevention. While at
the HIV Center, she worked on intervention studies of
the female condom in both New York and South Africa.
She also served as a qualitative analyst on a six-city
study of acute HIV infection.
In related news, former Fellow and current HIV Center
investigator
Shari Dworkin, Ph.D. will now serve as Associate
Training
Director and will co-chair the weekly Fellows' seminar
with Training Director
Theo Sandfort,
Ph.D. Dworkin will step down from her
responsibilities as Fellow Liaison; in her place,
Robert
Kertzner M.D., the former Training Director, will
fulfill the role of Fellow Advisor.
Recent Appointments
Anke A.
Ehrhardt, Ph.D. has assumed the role of Vice Chair
for Academic Affairs for the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry
and the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI) as
of September 1, 2007. A member of the Columbia
University faculty since 1977, she is a clinical
psychologist and an internationally known expert on
human sexuality and gender. Ehrhardt is Professor of
Medical Psychology in Psychiatry and has been Director
of the HIV Center since she co-founded it in 1987.
Robert Klitzman, M.D. has been
named by Governor Elliot Spitzer to the
Ethics
Committee of the Empire State
Stem Cell Board. The Board was
established to oversee and administer
$600 million in funding for the Empire
State Stem Cell Trust Fund to promote
stem cell research and
development. The
Ethics Committee will make
recommendations regarding scientific,
medical and
ethical standards. Klitzman is an
investigator at the HIV Center, Director of the Ethics,
Policy, and Human Rights Core, and Associate Professor
of Clinical Psychiatry.
NY HIV Research Centers
Consortium Conference
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The New York HIV Research Centers Consortium will be
sponsoring its fourth annual Scientific Conference on
the theme of "Living with HIV: Challenges for
Interdisciplinary Research." The event will be
held on Tuesday, November 27 from 9am-5pm at the NYU
Kimmel Conference Center in New York (near Washington
Square). Two morning panels will focus on
"Behavioral and Medical Perspectives on HIV Infection"
and "Access to HIV Care." The afternoon panels
will be on "Adherence and Continuity of HIV Medical
Care: Special Populations" and "Trends in Funding
Research on HIV-Positive Populations." Conference
presenters include academics and practitioners from a
variety of research centers, community-based
organizations, and medical facilities.
The Consortium is a collaborative project of 24 HIV research
centers designed to facilitate inter-institutional,
multi-disciplinary collaborations by scientists
affiliated with HIV research centers in the Greater New
York area. It is led by HIV Center Director
Anke Ehrhardt, Ph.D., Sherry Deren, Ph.D.,
Director of the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research at
NDRI. Inc., and Jack DeHovitz, M.D., M.P.H., Director of
the HIV Center for Women and Children at the SUNY
Downstate Medical Center.
Click here to
learn more about the Consortium and the conference. |
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A Dedication for a
Dedicated Man: Charles Armstrong
 From the founding of
the HIV Center in 1987 to his early death from AIDS in
1995, Charles Armstrong was the administrative
assistant to Center Director
Anke Ehrhardt,
Ph.D. and a key early supporter of the work of the
HIV Center.
The dedication of the Charlie
Armstrong Conference Room.
Hanging on the wall is a
painting by Armstrong of his
mother at the seashore. (Photo by Eve Vagg)
On June 27, 2007, Ehrhardt convened a brief
ceremony to dedicate the conference room in the Center
Director's suite to his memory.
Testimonials were offered by Ehrhardt and other
longtime Center investigators including
Zena Stein, M.B.,
B.Ch.,
Patricia
Warne, Ph.D.,
Robert Remien,
Ph.D.,
Joyce Hunter, D.S.W., and
Theresa Exner,
Ph.D. Charlie, as he was universally known, was
recalled as a "true original" who could be counted upon
to tirelessly advance the mission of the HIV Center --
while never being afraid to break the tension with a
ribald joke or an off-beat story. He was also
remembered as an inspired artist, often working in
pastel watercolors in a finely detailed pointillist
style. Three of Charlie's paintings, as well as his
photo, grace the walls of the Charlie Armstrong
Conference Room.
Fall Ethics Roundtables
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The Ethics, Policy, and Human Rights
Core of the HIV Center sponsored the
first Roundtable of the academic year on
September 17, 2007. Joshua Graff Zivin,
Ph.D. of the Department of Health Policy
and Management, Mailman School of Public
Health, and School of International and
Public Affairs, Columbia University
presented on "The Economic Impacts of
AIDS Treatment: Evidence from Western
Kenya."
On October 29, 2007 Peter Bearman,
Ph.D. of the Department of Sociology and
School of International and Public
Affairs, Columbia University is
scheduled to speak on "Translating
Research into Public Policy: The Case of
HIV and Adolescence." On November 19,
2007, Daniel Wolfe of the Open Society
Institute will present a lecture
entitled " In the Name of Health? The
Ethics of Drug Treatment in Asia and the
Former Soviet Union."
Ethics Roundtables will take place at
the New York State Psychiatric Institute
("new" building), 1051 Riverside Drive,
Room 6602 (Multipurpose Room), New York,
NY.
Subscribing to ICAP News
The International Center for AIDS Care
and Treatment Programs
(ICAP) at the
Columbia University Mailman School of
Public Health is now providing access to
AIDS care and treatment programs for
over 300,000 HIV-positive people, mostly
in Sub-Saharan Africa. Funded by
the United States government under the
President's Emergency Plan for AIDS
Relief (PEPFAR), ICAP works with
national and local partners to support
HIV-related programs. ICAP supports more
than 300 sites in 14 resource-limited
countries around the world, including
Cameroon, Cote d'Ivoire, Ethiopia,
Kenya, Lesotho, Mozambique, Nigeria,
Rwanda, South Africa, Swaziland,
Tanzania, Uganda, Zambia, and Thailand.
Each month, ICAP e-mails out a
newsletter providing updates of their
ever-expanding work. To subscribe, send
an e-mail to Communications Manager Poul
Olson at
po2123@columbia.edu.
Taking Project FIO to the Community
The HIV Center has recently been
funded to carry out two new diffusion
efforts with Project FIO (Future Is Ours.
PI:
Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D.), a
group-based intervention focused on the
realities of women's lives and their
relationships with men. The
intervention emphasizes the need for
negotiation skills with male partners
and the range of strategies for
HIV and STD prevention.
Project FIO has been identified by the
CDC as a DEBI (Diffusion of Effective
Behavioral Interventions) Project.
In one of the diffusion initiatives, Center investigators
Susie Hoffman, Dr.P.H.,
Jessica Adams-Skinner, Ed.D., and
Theresa Exner, Ph.D. will be working
with the Women's Prison Association to
train them to present FIO for groups of
women recently released from
incarceration. In addition,
Center investigators, along with Medical
and Health Research Association of NYC,
Inc. (MHRA), have been funded by the CDC to
reformat and package FIO as part of an
effort to disseminate the program to
community-based organizations and
clinics that serve women in family
planning clinics who are at the highest
risk of acquiring HIV infection. Hoffman and Adams-Skinner
will be collaborating with MHRA
investigators Jeff Natt, M.P.H., Mary
Anne Chiasson, Dr.P.H., and Pam Farquhar.
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