CHIMERA SITE VISIT - September 2022

CHIMERA (Capacity development for HIV and Mental health Research in Asia) is a five-year (2019–2024) HIV, mental health, and implementation science research training program funded by the Fogarty International Center and the National Institute of Mental Health of the US NIH (D43 MPIs Sohn and Wainberg; Mellins and Ross leadership team). CHIMERA aims to address the critical need to build capacity among Asia-Pacific clinicians and researchers to study the intersection between HIV and mental health and integrate care for people living with HIV.

The HIV Center hosted the D43 Fellows and Mentors in September 2022 for on-site training.

For more information on the Fellows and Mentors, please click here.

HPTN 096 co-chaired by HIV Center Director

 

HIV Center Director Robert H. Remien, PhD, is co-chair of HPTN 096: Building Equity Through Advocacy. The purpose of HPTN 096 is to assess an integrated, HIV status-neutral, population-based approach designed to reduce HIV incidence among Black MSM in the U.S. South by increasing HIV testing, pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) use among Black MSM living without HIV, and viral suppression rates among Black MSM living with HIV.

To learn more about the study, click HERE.

To visit the study website, click HERE.

2022 Pilot Awardees

Congratulations to our 2022 pilot awardees - Drs. Melissa Ertl and Justin Knox!

 
 

Melissa Ertl, PhD – Culturally Responsive PrEP Implementation with Substance-Involved Latinx Adults

Abstract

Although pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) provides powerful prevention against HIV, low uptake and adherence threaten public health efforts to reduce HIV incidence among substance-involved Latinx adults who are at risk for HIV. Formative, community-based participatory research is necessary to better understand unique barriers, facilitators, and cultural factors related to their engagement in sexual health care and to identify potential efficacious strategies with this high-risk minoritized population. Guided by implementation science and health equity promotion frameworks, we will conduct in-depth qualitative interviews with 30 substance-involved Latinx adults at risk for HIV and 6 service providers and directors, recruited at three partner sites, to explore prospects and possibilities for implementing PrEP and sexual health services. Aims include to: (1) assess barriers to and facilitators of sexual health and preventive (including PrEP) behaviors; (2) identify cultural factors and syndemic influences involved in sexual decision-making to support the development of culturally responsive approaches; and (3) explore perceptions of best fit messaging, practices, settings, champions, and other essential elements for delivering PrEP and sexual health services with substance-involved Latinx adults. This pilot study will inform a K01 application aiming to use mixed methods to advance understanding of sexual health promotion in Latinx adults who use substances and inform the development of culturally responsive, affirmative strategies for implementing PrEP and sexual health services. This work furthers NIH HIV strategic goals, including using “implementation strategies to improve systematic uptake of evidence-based prevention, care, and treatment interventions in diverse settings and populations.”


 
 

Justin Knox, PhD – Adapting Alcohol Interventions for Black SMM in the Context of HIV Services

Abstract

We propose a pilot study to collect preliminary data on how to adapt alcohol interventions for Black gay, bisexual and other sexual minority men (SMM), a population with a disproportionate burden of alcohol use and HIV, as well as how to deliver these interventions in HIV prevention and care settings. In order to achieve this, we will conduct in-depth interviews with journey mapping among 15 heavy-drinking Black SMM living with HIV and 15 heavy-drinking Black SMM at high-risk for HIV to understand their user experiences accessing and utilizing HIV prevention and care services. Journey mapping, a powerful tool from human centered design (HCD), will be used to elucidate salient pain points in the user journey and will inform the development of implementation strategies to improve the user experience and co-delivery of alcohol interventions and HIV prevention and care services. We will also conduct in-depth interviews with 10 implementation partners and collect input on feasibility of co-locating drinking reduction interventions into existing HIV prevention and care services. Collectively, we will use the findings from this research to inform the revision and re-submission of an R01 proposal to assess the effectiveness and implementation of a package of tailored drinking reductions interventions for Black SMM in the context of HIV prevention and care services.

In Memoriam: Dr. Dawn Smith

 
 

The HIV Center mourns the loss of Dawn Smith, MD, MPH, MS, an epidemiologist and medical officer with the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP) at the U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD and TB Prevention (NCHHSTP).   

Dr. Smith’s long and rich career included supporting the implementation of daily, oral, antiretroviral preexposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and other biomedical interventions to reduce rates of new HIV infections in the United States, and the development of PHS clinical practice guidelines for PrEP. She spent four years as the associate director for HIV research at the CDC field station in Botswana where she established clinical trial infrastructure with integrated socio-behavioral research and initiated PrEP trials. She was a vibrant supporter of HIV prevention efforts for women, and a leader in pioneering HIV prevention research for young girls. Dr. Smith also served on scientific committees and review panels for WHO, UNAIDS, NIAID, NIDA, NIMH, the NIH Office of AIDS Research and the Institute of Medicine.

Importantly, Dr. Smith was a long-time dedicated HIV prevention scientist and strong advocate for equity and social justice in public health.  She was a friend, colleague, and supporter of HIV Center research.  Dr. Smith was a key partner from the CDC for the HPTN 096 Protocol, providing leadership and guidance for PrEP advocacy, scale-up, and equitable access for Black MSM in the Southern United States.  She will be greatly missed by many – and her legacy will live on.

The HIV Center sends our deepest condolences to her family and colleagues.

In Memoriam: Dr. Zena Stein

Photo by Sandra Elkin.

The HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies, at Columbia University, and the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Research Foundation for Mental Hygiene will forever miss its founding Co-Director Emerita Dr. Zena Stein, who died on November 7, 2021, at the age of 99.

Zena Athene Stein championed issues of health and social justice across the world. Born in South Africa to Jewish migrants from Lithuania, Zena was an extraordinary teacher, mentor, researcher, colleague, and friend to many in Psychiatry and Public Health at Columbia and internationally. Her brilliance, warmth, wisdom and humility nurtured decades of students, research fellows and young investigators, as she encouraged them to pursue their passions, always pushing them to do more, to ask challenging and difficult questions, and to use the strongest science available. For over 70 years she and her husband, the late Dr. Mervyn Susser, Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia, with whom she co-founded the Epidemiology Doctoral Program in Public Health and the Gertrude H. Sergievesky Center within the College of Physicians and Surgeons, advanced rigorous research in public health. Zena was head of the Epidemiology of Brain Disorders department at New York State Psychiatric Institute for more than 30 years, where she led innovative work on neurodevelopmental disorders, spontaneous abortions, and genetic epidemiology, before turning her attention to HIV.

In the early days of the HIV epidemic, Zena foresaw that increasing numbers of women were likely to be infected by their partners, but her grant proposal was rejected on the grounds that heterosexual transmission was rare or nonexistent. Thereafter in 1987, however, the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies in the Psychiatry Department at NYSPI and Columbia University, was established, explicitly including a focus on women. Dr. Anke Ehrhardt, Professor Emerita of Medical Psychology (in Psychiatry) was Director, and Zena and Dr. Robert Spitzer were Co-Directors. The establishment of the Center was a pioneering undertaking that was initially met with considerable resistance, given the stigma surrounding both HIV and homosexuality. At the HIV Center, Zena and Anke encouraged researchers to focus on those who were neglected and most vulnerable, including gay men, as well as women and children. By the late 1980s, there was an increasing epidemic among women, but it remained “invisible” to many. Zena promoted research on treatment and breastfeeding for the children of HIV positive mothers in poor countries and was a strong proponent of reproductive rights, child development and the study of women over the life cycle. She believed, even in the era of HIV, that women, as well as gay men, were entitled to control their sexuality, well-being, and physical health. In line with these principles, she envisioned and advocated for the development of women-centered methods which might allow women to conceive, if they wished to, while preventing HIV infection. She advocated for the research and distribution of the female condom as well as microbicides. In addition to her research, Zena co-founded and directed the HIV Center’s NIH-funded T32 Post-doctoral Fellowship program, to generate behavioral and social sciences research in HIV. The many fellows she mentored and inspired went on to make significant contributions towards HIV prevention and treatment.

Zena had an unwavering global vision. Before HIV, she inspired a worldwide parent-centered perspective on childhood disability which was implemented by UNICEF. She also led a landmark study based on the Dutch Famine of 1944-45, a natural experiment designed to determine whether severe nutritional deficiency in utero - quite common in poor countries and also evident in the poorest communities in the US - impaired the cognitive development of offspring. In the 1990s, working initially with medical allies of the African National Congress (ANC) that led the struggle against Apartheid, she became an expert and mentor in HIV epidemiology in Southern Africa, and at the same time, KwaZulu Natal South Africa emerged as the world epicenter of the HIV epidemic. After the end of Apartheid, Zena and Mervyn, both nearly 80 years old, launched the Africa Centre for Health and Population Studies (one of two centers in Africa funded by the Wellcome Foundation) which involved them living six months in a remote and, at the time, dangerous Hlabisa, KwaZulu Natal. In 1994, Zena launched Columbia’s AIDS International Training and Research Program in South Africa, a program that went on to train more than 800 fellows. Zena continued to do work in Southern Africa, bringing many of her colleagues there to work on addressing the devastation of the HIV/AIDS pandemic. The efforts of Zena and Mervyn in South Africa were not lost on Nelson Mandela who on their 80th birthdays sent the following message: “Over the years, especially when we were in prison, we managed to get trickles of information about you…your active contribution to struggle for democracy was undiminished…Although we are divided by a great distance today, please know that our thoughts and best wishes are with you…”

Zena’s profound scientific and moral commitment and insight will live on not only at Columbia Schools and Departments but across the country and globe. We will remember Zena always for her commitment to public health, for advancing science, for integrating social justice into every aspect of her work, and for never giving up. We will remember her love of people, of poetry, of humanity and our thoughts are with her family, many of whom we are lucky to call colleagues and who have made substantive contributions to their respective fields including Psychiatry, Psychology, Anthropology and Public Health.

New JIAS Supplement | Global Mental Health & HIV

The Journal of the International AIDS Society (JIAS) has launched a new Special Issue entitled: “Global Mental Health and HIV Prevention and Care.” The Special Issue, guest-edited by Drs Robert H Remien, Melanie Amna Abas, Vikram Patel, and Dixon Chibanda, consists of a collection of articles focusing on mental health and HIV, predominantly in low- and middle-income settings with a high HIV burden, and among key populations at greatest risk of HIV.

Access all articles for free HERE.

Congratulations to our 2020-2021 T32 Graduates!

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Please join us in congratulating the recent graduates of our Postdoctoral Training Program: Behavioral Sciences Training in HIV infection. We wish them all much success and look forward to seeing their future endeavors within the HIV Center and beyond!

Clockwise from top-left:
 

Jagadīśa-devaśrī Dacus, PhD, LMSW 

Philip Kreniske, PhD 

Bryan Kutner, PhD, MPH 

Ofole Mgbako, MD 

Nadia Nguyen, PhD, MSPH

 

Click HERE to learn more about the HIV Center Postdoctoral Training Program.

COMMITMENT TO ENDING ANTI-BLACK RACISM

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In the Summer of 2020, the Columbia University HIV Center Postdoctoral Research Fellows and Associate Fellows drafted the following letter in an effort to acknowledge and address anti-Black racism endemic to academia and public health in the United States. The letter as a whole makes policy and practice suggestions to the HIV Center to work towards greater racial equity and inclusion. Below is the letter presented to HIV Center Leadership, which has resulted in numerous conversations between the Fellows and HIV Center Leadership, and has led to Center Leadership both taking concrete action in the short term and beginning longer-term change within the Center. These conversations and plans continue to evolve, and, in the spirit of transparency, we would like to share these remarks publicly.

Click HERE to read more.

Ending the HIV Epidemic: A Plan for America New York City Health Department Activities

The HIV Center hosted a special presentation on Tuesday, September 15th, led by Anisha Gandhi and Adrian Guzman on the NYC DOHMH's Ending the HIV Epidemic initiatives.

Click HERE to access the NYC Ending the HIV Epidemic Community Survey.

Anisha Gandhi, PhD, MPH is Acting Assistant Commissioner and Director of Racial Equity and Social Justice Initiatives in the Bureau of HIV. Adrian Guzman, JD, MPH, is Director of Policy & External Affairs in the Bureau of HIV.

2020 PILOT STUDY AWARDEES

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The HIV Center is proud to announce the 2020 awardees of the Pilot Study Program. Please join us in congratulating our Postdoctoral Fellows: Drs. Nadia Nguyen, Anthony Santoro, and Daniel Winetsky!

Proposal titles are listed below.

Real-time ART adherence feedback using a point-of-care urine tenofovir
(Nadia Nguyen, PhD)

Adversity, genotyping, and neurocognitive impairment in HIV-infected Thai youth 
(Anthony Santoro, PhD)

Developing a social support intervention to enhance post-incarceration HIV care
(Daniel Winetsky, MD, MS)

Three Decades and Counting: HIV Service Provision in Outpatient Mental Health Settings

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Ending the HIV epidemic is an urgent public health priority in New York State, but inclusion of people with serious mental illness in those efforts has not been examined. The authors surveyed licensed outpatient mental health program directors statewide to document which HIV services they were offering to their clients. Outpatient mental health programs have improved some HIV services since 1997, but prevention, testing, and treatment monitoring are lagging.

Click below to access the article.

Three Decades and Counting: HIV Service Provision in Outpatient Mental Health Settings

2020 PSYCHOLOGY AND AIDS Distinguished Leadership Award

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The Ad Hoc Committee on Psychology and AIDS has selected Robert H. Remien, Ph.D., as theDistinguished Leader recipient of the 2020 Psychology and AIDS Distinguished Leadership Award for “a decades-long career that stands as a model of how psychologists have uniquely contributed to the domestic and international battle against HIV/AIDS and for highlighting the critical role that mental health plays in efforts to end the epidemic.”  

Congratulations, Dr. Remien!

Adherence 2019

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Adherence 2019 was held on June 17-19, 2019, at the Loews Miami Beach Hotel in Miami, FL, USA. Sponsored by the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care (IAPAC).

This annual series of conferences featured the presentation and discussion of HIV treatment and biomedical prevention adherence research, and current behavioral and clinical perspectives in practicum, within the context of optimizing the continuum of HIV care and prevention. Adherence 2019 also featured an implementation science track focused on closing gaps between evidence and routine practice for health in real-world settings. The 2019 conference’s Co-Chairs were Catherine Orrell, MBChB, MSc, MMed and Robert H. Remien, PhD.

HIV Center members and affiliates poster and oral presentations included:

Poster Abstracts

  • Dr. Iván Balán, presented “Fostering Adherence and Open Communication through PrEP Biomarker Feedback”.

  • Dr. Alex Carballo-Diéguez, presented “Few Aggressive or Violent Incidents are Associated with the Use of HIV Self-Tests to Screen Sexual Partners among Key Populations”.

  • Dr. Justin Knox, presented “Assessing Psychosocial Determinants of PrEP Adherence in Black MSM and TGW in a Community Clinic in Harlem Using Two Measures”.

  • Dr. Christine Rael, presented “Feasibility and Relative Efficacy of Targeted Online Strategies for HIV Study Recruitment”.



Oral Abstracts

  • Michael Hager, M.P.H, presented “Closing Evidence-to-Practice Gaps: New Jersey's Collaborative Approach to Behavioral Health Integration in HIV Settings”.

  • Dr. Alissa Davis, presented “Longitudinal ART Adherence Trajectories and Sociodemographic and Psychosocial Predictors among ART Initiators in Cape Town, South Africa”

  • Dr. Sarit Golub, presented “PrEP Adherence Self-Efficacy Scale Predicts Uptake, Persistence, and Adherence over 12 Months”.

  • Dr. Nadia Nguyen, presented “Can Self-Reported Adherence Predict ART Adherence Assessed by an Electronic Monitoring Device (Wisepill) in Resource-Constrained Settings in Cape Town, South Africa?”

  • Dr. Jason Zucker, presented “Using Individualized Provider Feedback to Improve HIV Screening in a High-Volume Emergency Department”



Dr. Peter Anderson was featured on the panel, "Assessing Treatment Adherence: Is There Something Wrong with Your Measurement?"


Conference Co-Chairs Orrell and Remien each moderated panels, "Examining Option B-Plus: Is it the Panacea We Had Hoped For?" and "Accelerated Treatment: Perspectives on Same-Day ART Prescription," respectively.

Pictured, (clockwise from top left), are Drs. Orrell and Remien, Alissa Davis, Sarit Golub, Michael Hager, Jason Zucker, and Nadia Nguyen.

World AIDS Day 2018

World AIDS Day will be marking its 30th anniversary on December 1st 2018. This year’s theme will be “Know your status.”

Significant progress has been made in the AIDS response since 1988, and today three in four people living with HIV know their status.  That said, 1 in 4 do not know their status and thus, there is still much work to be done in reaching people living with HIV who do not know their status, ensuring that they are linked to quality care and prevention services.  HIV testing is the first step in the HIV Care Cascade and is essential for expanding treatment and ensuring that all people living with HIV can lead healthy and productive lives.

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Tremendous advances have been made in HIV prevention and treatment since the discovery of the virus that causes AIDS and the early days of the epidemic.  HIV is no longer a “death sentence” and is now seen as a manageable chronic illness with the possibility of living a normal lifespan.  In addition, it is now known that it is highly unlikely – some would even say impossible – for a person living with HIV who is adherent to their treatment and maintains a suppressed HIV viral load to transmit the virus to sex partners and from mother-to-child during pregnancy and childbirth.  This, along with the success of PrEP (pre-exposure prophylaxis), gives us all high optimism for the potential of ending the HIV epidemic with successful wide-scale implementation of HIV prevention and treatment.

We know however, that we still face many challenges to successfully scaling up these biomedical advances due to economic, social and health disparities, particularly for the most vulnerable populations.  And unfortunately, stigma and discrimination still deters people from taking an HIV test, finding out their status, and accessing and adhering to effective antiretroviral therapy.

The HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies is dedicated to the development and implementation of innovative multidisciplinary research that will advance the knowledge and science of HIV prevention, treatment, and care, both domestically and globally. The Center provides the value-added infrastructure to ensure methodological and theoretical rigor, to identify and respond to new trends in the epidemic, to support critical partnerships across research and practice sectors, and to train new behavioral scientists.  

We join our friends and colleagues across the globe this World AIDS Day in raising awareness about the importance of knowing one’s status and calling for the removal of all barriers to accessing HIV testing, as well as ongoing care and treatment.  

Click HERE for a list of recent HIV Center publications.

-Robert Remien and HIV Center Leadership


In this video produced by the Columbia University Department of Psychiatry, Dr. Robert Remien, HIV Center Director, and Dr. Claude Ann Mellins, Co-Director, break down the state of HIV/AIDS in 2018, prevention and treatment advances, vulnerable populations, mental health, and optimism to help reduce sigma, raise hope, and improve physical and mental health outcomes.

Follow #RockTheRibbon and #WorldAIDSDay for more World AIDS Day media.


WORLD AIDS DAY EVENTS

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Join Columbia University’s ICAP for “Knowledge is Power: World AIDS Day at 30” featuring presentations, panel discussions, and a video premiere around the theme of “Know your status” – the official theme for World AIDS Day 2018.

December 4, 2018 - 1:30-3:00PM
Hess Commons, Allan Rosenfield Bldg
722 W. 168th St., New York, NY 10032

RSVP and add to calendar


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Making it Happen, Getting it Done!

Join the third annual Ending the Epidemic (ETE) Summit hosted by the New York State Department of Health’s AIDS Institute.

December 4-5, 2018
Empire State Plaza Convention Center, Albany, NY.

Click HERE for more details and to register for the event.

Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award

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HIV Center Co-director Gina Wingood, ScD, MPH, has been named the 2018 recipient of the Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award, along with Ralph DiClemente, PhD.

The Ryan White Distinguished Leadership Award was created in 2009 by the Rural Center for AIDS/STD Prevention (RCAP) to honor Ryan White and persons who have made significant, national, and/or international achievements in HIV/AIDS prevention.

Ryan White, a rural, Indiana youth, contracted HIV in 1984 and became a national poster boy on AIDS until his death in 1990, a few months prior to his intended enrollment at Indiana University, Bloomington. The award plaque given to each recipient reads "In appreciation for your outstanding contributions to HIV/AIDS prevention and for being an exemplary bearer of the standard of excellence and commitment needed to combat HIV/AIDS.

Congratulations, Gina!

HIV Center at the HIVR4P – Research for Prevention 2018 Conference

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The HIV Center had a strong presence at the 2018 HIVR4P Conference in Madrid, Spain.

We are proud of the HIV Center members and collaborators who presented their scientific findings and participated in satellite sessions to share their expertise in line with this year’s theme “From Research to Impact”:

For more information about the conference and view the online program, click here. To view session recordings, click here.

Congratulations ICAP on 15 years!

The HIV Center would like to extend congratulations to our colleagues and collaborators at ICAP on their 15 years of dedicated work in HIV/AIDS research.

Through a mix of research, implementation, and training, ICAP pursues its mission to make health and well-being a reality for populations around the world.”

Click here for a short video celebrating their 15 year anniversary.

ICAP 15 years

HIV Center at the AIDS 2018 Conference

©International AIDS Society/Marten van Dijl.

©International AIDS Society/Marten van Dijl.

The HIV Center continues its commitment to disseminating research findings by having a strong presence at the 2018 International AIDS Conference in Amsterdam, Netherlands.

We are proud of the HIV Center members who presented their scientific findings and participated in satellite sessions in their areas of expertise:

Denis Nash recognized as Distinguish Professor

Denis Nash named Distinguished Professor by CUNY Board of Trustees

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June 25th, 2018 - HIV Center member Dr. Denis Nash has been recognized by the CUNY Board of Trustees as Distinguished Professor at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health and Health Policy.  Dr. Nash is widely recognized as an international leader in the global fight against HIV/AIDS.

Dr. Nash previously served as the Co-Director of our Public Health Policy and Practice core and now joins us as the Director of the Implementation Science and Health Outcomes Core. We are very proud and privileged to count on his support and expertise in the coming years.

Congratulations!

Columbia iQ student group: HIV/AIDS Today

April 18th, 2018

Drs. Robert Remien and Bryan Kutner from the HIV Center were invited by the Columbia iQ* LGBTQ student group to the HIV/AIDS Today event as panel discussants. The event hosted conversations about the state of HIV/AIDS in New York City, including new and emerging scientific findings. Drs. Remien and Kutner joined Angela Aidala PhD (Associate Research Scientist in Sociomedical Sciences) and Daniel Chiarelli PhD (Associate Director of Columbia's Gay Health Advocacy Project) for a Q/A discussion about myths and facts, biomedical interventions (e.g., Treatment as Prevention and PrEP), Syndemics, Health Disparities, and the emergence of the “U=U” campaign (Undetectable = Untransmittable). 

"We were surprised by the level of knowledge among the students. Many had heard of PrEP and some of PEP, fewer had heard of U=U or some of the promising biomedical interventions under current or planned study, like injectable PrEP, rectal microbicides, and vaginal rings." 

The HIV Center is committed to collaborating with community members across NYC in order to communicate and share up-to-date findings in the HIV/AIDS prevention and intervention landscape. Dr. Kutner states “in-person outreach, responding to specific questions about the epidemic, continues to offer an opportunity to clarify misinformation.

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*Columbia iQ is the affinity group of LGBTQ undergraduates which seeks to foster queer and trans leadership and community in the fields of Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM).  From discussions and panels to networking and employer site visits, iQ is committed to community-building, mentorship, and expanding the visibility of queer and trans individuals in STEM.