Who

Program Leadership

Program Directors

Deanna Kerrigan, PhD, MPH
Chair & Professor of Prevention & Community Health

Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA
Professor of Applied Social Psychology

Drs. Bowleg and Kerrigan co-lead the T-32 TASHI Training Program and are Co-Directors of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core of the DC CFAR.

Program Manager

Senior Adviser

Courtney Coffey, MPH
202-994-1324
tashi@gwu.edu

Wendy Davis, EdM

Current Trainees

2022 Trainee Cohort

Arianne Malekzadeh, MA

Program: PhD Candidate in Applied Social Psychology

School/Department: Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, Psychological & Brain Sciences

Research Interests: Understanding and addressing structural intersectional stigma and discrimination as barriers to HIV prevention for women

What have you gained from the TASHI program? I've gained knowledge about intersectionality, particularly from the Intersectionality 101 In A Day training, which I'm applying to my research and manuscripts. I've gained grant writing skills that will be used to develop applications. I learned a lot about community-based research and collaboration by working on the DC CFAR partnership guide. Most importantly, I've received excellent mentoring and support from the TASHI team.

Simone Sawyer, MPH

Program: PhD Candidate in Social and Behavioral Sciences

School/Department: Milken Institute School of Public Health, Prevention and Community Health

Research Interests: Sexual and Reproductive Health, Mental Health, Youth/Young Adults, Community-Based Participatory Research (CBPR), Youth Participatory Action Research (YPAR), Dissemination/Implementation Science, Evaluations of Community and/or School-based programs

What have you gained from the TASHI program? Being part of TASHI this past year has given me a new level of confidence, support, and expertise. I've gained more access to trainings, seminars, faculty, and community members that have helped me to build my skills/confidence as a young investigator. The TASHI team really feels like a family. The support we receive is unmatched and brings a nice sense of community. Being able to learn new things through training but also apply them by working on projects such as the best practices guide and presenting at USCHA is allowing me to showcase my new knowledge and expertise.

2023 Trainee Cohort

Breana Castonguay, MPH

Program: PhD Student in Social and Behavioral Sciences

School/Department: Milken Institute School of Public Health, Prevention and Community Health

Research Interests: Ensuring persons living or at risk of acquiring HIV have equal access to innovative treatment and prevention services, and the effects policies have on the health of communities.

What made you interested in the TASHI program? I seek doctoral training from the Training Program in Approaches to Address Social-Structural Factors Related to HIV Intersectionality (TASHI) to conduct community-driven research that promotes equitable access and to cultivate a peer network to develop proposals to improve HIV and related health outcomes.

Myla P. Lyons, BA

Program: PhD Student in Applied Social Psychology

School/Department: Columbian College of Arts & Sciences, Psychological & Brain Sciences

Research Interests: Health promotion and improving the quality of life for Black LGBTQIA+ communities and individuals through community-based work, especially pertaining to HIV, mental health, and policy

What made you interested in the TASHI program? I became interested in the TASHI program because it aligns with my current work and is composed of curricula that will bolster my engagement in future areas of research.

2024 Trainee Cohort

The image shows a picture of Rebecca Erenrich a 2024 TASHi trainee.

Rebecca Erenrich, MPH

Program: PhD Student in Social and Behavioral Sciences

School/Department: Milken Institute School of Public Health, Prevention and Community Health

Research Interests: Social and structural determinants of health including environmental, social and economic context, community engaged research, and access and adherence to HIV pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) and HIV treatment among people who inject drugs.

What made you interested in the TASHI program? I became interested in participating in TASHI because I was convinced it would help me to develop the skills and expertise I need to become an impactful HIV researcher, ensuring better and more equitable outcomes.

Joseph M. Green, B.S.

Program: Ph.D. Student in Clinical Psychology

School/Department: Columbian College of Arts and Sciences, Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences

Research Interests: LGBTQ+ mental and behavioral health, family processes and interventions that promote health among LGBTQ+ youth, the impact of structural stigma on HIV prevention/intervention among adolescent men who have sex with men (AMSM)

What made you interested in the TASHI program? The TASHI program aligns with my goals of understanding the ways in which community and structural contexts influence HIV prevention for AMSM, and the mechanisms through which these sociostructural factors operate.

Affiliated Faculty

Program Faculty represent multiple disciplines, including the social and behavioral sciences, such as psychology, anthropology, and sociology, as well as within health and medicine, such as epidemiology, biostatistics, nursing, pediatrics, and psychiatry.

TASHI draws on 19 program faculty members from across the following departments:

GW College of Arts & Sciences
Clinical Psychology
Applied Social Psychology
Psychological and Brain Sciences

GW Milken Institute School of Public Health
Prevention and Community Health
Epidemiology

GW School of Medicine
Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences

Olga Acosta Price, PhD
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Access to health care, behavioral health, program evaluation, school health

Carla Berg, PhD
Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Health disparities, chronic disease, substance use, mental health, PLHIV

Lisa Bowleg, PhD, MA
Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: HIV, social-structural context, intersectionality, resilience, Black men and LGBT

Sarah Calabrese, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: HIV biomedical prevention, stigma, health disparities

Amanda Castel, MD, MPH
Professor, Epidemiology
Research Interests: HIV, surveillance, epidemiology, clinical outcomes, cohort studies

Donaldson Conserve, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Implementation of community-based HIV services

Derek Dangerfield II, PhD
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: HIV Prevention, PrEP, Misinformation/Disinformation in Sexual Health Disparities, Black gay, bisexual, and other sexual minority men

Ana María del Río-González, PhD, MS
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: HIV prevention, LGBT Health, Intersectionality

David Huebner, PhD
Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: LGBT Health, HIV prevention, discrimination and health

Deanna Kerrigan, PhD, MPH
Professor & Chair, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Social-Structural Determinants of HIV, Gender, Stigma, Community Interventions

Brandon Kohrt, MD, PhD
Professor, Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences
Research Interests: Mental health, global health, syndemics, humanitarian health research

Sharon Lambert, PhD
Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research interests: Racism, Community violence

Huynh-Nhu Le, PhD
Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: Perinatal depression, anxiety, stress; Low-income women

Manya Magnus, RN, PhD
Professor, Epidemiology
Research Interests: HIV Prevention, HIV/AIDS Epidemiology

Jonathon Rendina, PhD
Associate Research Professor, Epidemiology
Research Interests: HIV/AIDS, stigma, quantitative methods

Kathleen Roche, PhD
Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Adolescent risk behaviors, mental health, Latino health, Neighborhoods

Michelle Stock, PhD
Associate Professor, Psychological and Brain Sciences
Research Interests: Discrimination, Health Disparities

Tamara Taggart, PhD, MPH
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Socio-structural and cultural determinants of HIV inequities, youth, Mixed-methods, CBPR

Yan Wang, MD, PhD
Associate Professor, Prevention and Community Health
Research Interests: Application of advanced statistical methods, Sexual risk behaviors, health disparities

Internal Executive Committee (IEC)

External Advisory Board (EAB)

TASHI is guided by an External Advisory Board (EAB) of five highly recognized academic experts from diverse disciplines and backgrounds with significant experience in conducting research and training in the areas of social-structural factors as they related to HIV prevention, treatment and care, including from a community-engaged and intersectional lens.

Kim Blankenship, PhD
Seth Kalichman, PhD
Tonia Poteat, PhD, PA-C, MPH
Carlos Rodriguez-Diaz, PhD, MPH
Jae Sevelius, PhD
Maria Cecilia Zea, PhD