Associate Professor of Clinical Medicine
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine
Disclosure: I do not have any relevant financial / non-financial relationships with any proprietary interests.
I am an Infectious Disease provider with expertise in comprehensive HIV care, HIV prevention and STI treatment in vulnerable populations. My work emphasizes on lowering community HIV viral burden through increasing antiretroviral use and increasing the uptake of use of PrEP in areas with high prevalence of HIV. I have had the opportunity to care for one of the poorest communities of color and was able to be co-investigator in several research studies involving Young Black and Latino men who have sex with men which informed the first steps to implementation of HIV Pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) in Mississippi. I am interested in understanding the individual and sociodemographic barriers to uptake of PrEP in LGBT people as well as closing the gaps in HIV continuum of care. I established two centers for LGBT health in Jackson, MS. One of the mixed methods research projects done in these LGBT centers, demonstrated that transwomen lack access to holistic transgender care and indicated that innovated ways to deliver HIV prevention combining services of gender affirming treatment (GAT) in one clinical setting would be beneficial for transgender healthcare.
My goal is to expand HIV prevention and HIV care services to be delivered through a multidisciplinary effort, at the University of Miami, continue efforts to provide HIV prevention to transgender women through starting a new service, The Gen-Well Program, which offers PrEP and GAT at the same clinic visit. This new program also offers PrEP navigation and mental health referrals for transgender women. In my Infectious Disease continuity-clinic I manage newly diagnosed HIV and chronic HIV, I provide immediate ARV initiation to ensure linkage to care. I serve as PI and Co-I on several NIH studies and clinical trials with my mentors. My research studies are: a HEIDI Pilot, to create the first Early HIV infection Cohort of Miami, this project will contribute to HIV vaccine and cure and II was awarded a CFAR EHE supplement award in 2022: PrEP-GAT, An Egocentric Social Network Intervention to Increase Uptake, Retention and Adherence to PrEP Bundled with Gender Affirming Therapy in Black and Latina Transgender Women; and in 2023 DIGIPrEP, which goal's is to develop and pre-test scientifically supported content of tailored materials for a new bundled PrEP and gender-affirming hormone therapy component and assess the acceptability and utility of these materials in the Black and Latina transgender community. These studies also highlights the utility of social network approaches in informing the potential reach and identification of key individuals in BLTW personal networks to promote and disseminate information about PrEP-GAT services.
