Appointments and Awards

Robert H. Remien, Ph.D., has been promoted to full Professor of Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry) at Columbia University. Dr. Remien is Director of the HIV Center's Global Community Core, Faculty mentor for HIV Center Postdoctoral Fellows, and Clinical Supervisor to psychiatric residents in training. His research is focused on mental health, sexual risk behavior, and adherence to treatment and care, and he has developed and tested several behavioral interventions in these domains in both domestic and international settings. As a researcher in the HIV Center from its beginnings, he has published numerous articles on psychopathology and psychological resilience, psychoimmunology, coping and adaptation to chronic illness among individuals, couples, and families, sexual and health behaviors, long-term survival with HIV/AIDS, and acute HIV-infection. Dr. Remien has worked to facilitate numerous collaborations and partnerships among health departments, community-based organizations, and clinic sites on behalf of the HIV Center and its investigators throughout its history.

Miguel A. Muñoz-Laboy, Dr.P.H.,was promoted to Associate Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. A member of the HIV Center's Global Community Core, he is the Director of the Dr.P.H. program in sociomedical sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Muñoz-Laboy's research focuses on the intersections among sexuality, masculinity, and culture. He also recently received a four-year $2.3 million grant from the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development for research titled, "Gender, Power and Latino Men´s HIV Risk," one of the first large-scale research projects to focus on issues of bisexuality and HIV risk among Latinos. It will also be the first to examine how the context of labor and sexual markets shape the sexual lives and health risks of bisexual men of color. In addition, Dr. Muñoz-Laboy received funding from a new  initiative from the Professional Schools’ Diversity Council, which seeks to help diverse junior faculty to develop scholarly profiles that will enable them to become eligible for tenure. He will study sexual risk behaviors among bisexual Latino women and men. Another member of the Global Community Core, Patrick Wilson, Ph.D., assistant professor of sociomedical sciences, also received support from the Diversity Council to examine situational factors that promote high-risk sex among HIV-positive men who have sex with other men.

Robert Klitzman, M.D., who directs the HIV Center's Ethics and Policy Core, has been promoted to full Professor of Clinical Psychiatry. This academic year, he also led the initiation of a Master of Science degree program in Bioethics, which he now directs at the Columbia University School of Continuing Education. This new program provides students with the training to work professionally on issues in bioethics, and will ground them in historical, philosophical, legal, and social science approaches and models for addressing bioethics. It will prepare students to work in various capacities within this ever-growing field, and will include a concentration in global bioethics, the first of its kind in the United States. New York Governor David Paterson has also named Dr. Klitzman for a second three-year term by 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 makes recommendations regarding scientific, medical and ethical standards.

Katherine Elkington, Ph.D., was appointed an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychology (in Psychiatry) in the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry. A recently graduated HIV Center postdoctoral fellow. Dr. Elkington is building a research program on the relationship of stigma, mental illness, and HIV risk among adolescents. She is also expanding this work to adjudicated youth in the New York State correctional system and has collaborated with Milton Wainberg, M.D., in developing an R01 proposal (NIDA; under review) to enhance family-based drug treatment for adolescents by integrating HIV sexual risk reduction into ongoing care.

On November 10, Joyce Hunter, D.S.W.  was one of two recipients -- along with New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg -- of The Emery Award from the Hetrick-Martin Institute. The award, named for Emery Hetrick who co-founded the agency with his partner Damien Martin, has been been given annually for the past 23 years. It honors individuals and corporations that exemplify Hetrick-Martin’s mission of providing a safe and supportive environment for all young people – regardless of their sexual orientation or identity – as well as those who have demonstrated outstanding leadership within the community. Dr. Hunter received the award for her extensive and long-standing commitment to the LGBT community, especially youth, and in particular for her role in co-founding the Harvey Milk High School for LGBT students at the Hetrick-Martin Institute. For more on Dr. Hunter's work with LGBT youth, see the Newsbriefs section of his issue.

Susie Hoffman, Dr.P.H. has been named the new Co-Director of the HIV Center's Statistics, Epidemiology, and Data (SED) Core. Dr. Hoffman is a social epidemiologist, an Assistant Professor of Clinical Epidemiology at the Columbia Mailman School of Public Health, and a Research Scientist at the HIV Center. She has been an active member of the SED Core since 2002 and has taken a lead role on all of the Core’s consultations and special activities focusing on epidemiology. She is the Principal Investigator of a large R01 grant from NIMH, Pathways to Engagement in HIV Care for Newly Diagnosed South Africans. In her new role, Dr. Hoffman succeeds the late Alan Berkman, M.D., and joins Howard Andrews, Ph.D., Co-Director for Data Management, and Bruce Levin, Ph.D. SED Core Director and Co-Director for Statistics in the SED Core leadership.

In the US, one of the most vulnerable groups for getting HIV infection is young men, especially young Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM). To address the need for new approaches to primary prevention, Alex Carballo-Diéguez. Ph.D.has recently launched a new study of Microbicide Safety and Acceptability in Young Men, along with collaborators Ana Ventuneac, Ph.D., and Curtis Dolezal, Ph.D.  The study will be conducted with an ethnically diverse sample of HIV-negative MSM, 18-30 years old, who report engaging in receptive anal intercourse using condoms inconsistently or not at all. The goal of this study is to test whether this highly vulnerable population could safely use a microbicide candidate that has been tested in women in vaginal clinical trials, and whether patterns of use of a placebo indistinguishable from the microbicide candidate suggest that the product would be used correctly and consistently in real life circumstances. Acceptability and adherence will be studied first using a placebo gel applied with a specifically designed rectal delivery device in real-life sexual encounters. Subsequently, the safety of the microbicide candidate will be studied among those men who show the highest adherence to gel use. Dr. Carballo-Diéguez also serves on the leadership committee of the Microbicide Trials Network and directs several network studies including one using cell phones and teleconferencing to increase the rate and accuracy of reporting of acceptability and use of microbicides among young minority women in the US and Puerto Rico.

New Postdoctoral Fellows join the HIV Center

This academic year, we have been joined by four new postdoctoral Fellows. These four joined continuing Fellows Huso Yi, Ph.D., Reuben Robbins, Ph.D., and Lisa Chin, Ed.D., J.D.

Rahwa Haile, Ph.D., received her  doctorate in Public Health and an MA in American Culture from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and a BA in History from Columbia University.  Dr. Haile’s areas of interest include the political economy of health and illness, and social determinants of health and illness. Her recent research projects focus on the role of stigma and social inequalities in facilitating and contributing to racial disparities in HIV/AIDS among sexual minority men in the United States and in sub-Saharan Africa. Dr. Haile is interested in employing both human rights and community based participatory approaches to addressing racial disparities in health.

Eric Houston, Ph.D., received his doctorate in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago. He completed his APA-approved predoctoral internship at New York-Presbyterian Hospital Weill Cornell Medical Center. Dr. Houston’s research interests focus on HIV risk behaviors among individuals dually-diagnosed with psychiatric and substance use disorders. He is also interested in medication adherence and adaptation among dually-diagnosed persons living with HIV/AIDS.

Devaki Nambiar, Ph.D., received her doctorate in Public Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, specializing in theory-based research on HIV/AIDS-related stigma in the developing country context, drawing on fieldwork in India. Her research applies critical theory towards understanding global health and human rights, focusing on the role of civil society and cultural interventions in creating and reproducing resistance and hegemony in resource-poor settings. Dr. Nambiar has conducted qualitative and quantitative fieldwork and analysis connected to these themes in HIV/AIDS-related treatment and prevention settings in Tanzania, India and Bangladesh. She has also conducted mixed method evaluations of entertainment education and art-based health interventions in India using mass media as well as participatory theater and radio. Currently, she is involved with analyses of civic participation in religious responses to HIV/AIDS in Brazil and evaluation of cultural interventions to reduce HIV/AIDS-related stigma in Vietnam.

Tawandra L. Rowell, Ph.D.,  received her doctorate in Social Welfare from the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rowell is interested in the role of incarceration, substance abuse, and sexual behavior in HIV acquisition and transmission among African-American MSM. Prior to her appointment as a postdoctoral fellow, she conducted research at the Department of Justice and the Joint Center for Political and Economic Studies in Washington, DC. She also worked on research projects in the Center for Addiction Studies, Center for Behavioral Health Services & Criminal Justice Research, and the Center for Health Disparities Research at the University of Pennsylvania. Dr. Rowell received a National Institute on Drug Abuse Dissertation Research Fellowship for her study, “The Impact of Drugs on the Sexual Behavior of African-American Male Inmates”.

Several staff changes have also taken place in the HIV Center's Administrative Core. Tamara Yates, Assistant to Center Director Anke A. Ehrhardt, Ph.D., departed in August after three years at the HIV Center and completion of a Master's degree in school psychology, in order to pursue new opportunities in her field. She has been succeeded by former HIV Center Core Coordinator Laura Schairer. The Core Coordinator position is now held by Mieko Hobara, who was previously at the Columbia University Department of Cognitive Neuroscience, where she worked for 9 years as a Research Associate.