DC CFAR Social and Behavioral Sciences Core - Leadership Changes


December 1, 2016

SBS Core Leadership
After four years of exceptional leadership of the Social and Behavioral Sciences (SBS) Core, Dr. Kim Blankenship will be stepping down as Core Director in January 2017 when she will be transitioning to a faculty position at Drexel University in Philadelphia.  Under Dr. Blankenship's leadership, the SBS Core has fostered robust and innovative scientific collaboration and research among HIV investigators in Washington, DC.  The DC CFAR is deeply grateful to Dr. Blankenship for her many contributions and congratulates her on her new position.  Dr. Blankenship will continue to support the SBS Core in an advisory capacity in 2017. 
 

Dr. Maria Cecilia Zea, the SBS Core Co-Director, will serve as Interim SBS Core Director in 2017. Dr. Zea has been the PI of three NIH-funded R01s: 1) Disclosure of HIV status among Latino MSM in Washington DC, New York City, and Boston; 2) Contextual factors of sexual risk among Brazilian, Colombian, and Dominican immigrant MSM; and 3) HIV prevalence, sexual risk, and attitudes toward circumcision among Colombian MSM. Dr. Zea, whose research focuses on social and behavioral aspects of HIV/AIDS risk among Latinos and African Americans, served previously as SBS Core Director from 2010 to 2012. Dr. Zea was recently awarded an R34 from the National Institutes of Health entitled, "A Webnovela-Based Intervention to Promote HIV Testing among Colombian MSM".  

The DC CFAR is delighted to announce that effective January 2018 (following a sabbatical in 2017), Dr. Lisa Bowleg will assume the role of SBS Core Director. Dr. Bowleg is a professor of psychology at the George Washington University Columbian College of Arts and Sciences whose research focuses on the effects of individual-level and social-structural factors and resilience on Black men's HIV sexual risk and protective behaviors. In this capacity, Dr. Bowleg will join the DC CFAR Executive Committee and will help shape the future of the DC CFAR's work.
 
The DC CFAR is grateful for the many contributions of Drs. Blankenship, Zea and Bowleg. Please join us in thanking and supporting them during this important transitional period.