2019–present: Community Advisory Board, Community-Based Approaches to Reducing STIs, Durham, NC

In current Scientist II role, Project Director on a CDC-funded program partnered with young people of color in Durham who identify as sexual/gender minorities to reduce HIV and STIs in the community. Engagement processes include:

• Formed an adolescent health work group with stakeholders including youth, community advocates, Durham Housing Authority, Healing with CAARE, Inc., and the Partnership for a Healthy Durham. This was a smaller project completed in 2020 on which the current CDC project was built and formed.  During COVID-19, recruited youth from the Durham community for youth-only discussion sessions in HIV testing and PrEP, utilizing an evidence-based process of youth engagement (‘Youth Generating and Organizing – Youth GO’).

• Provided continuity from a previously funded small award from the UNC CFAR, which explored HIV and PrEP awareness for Black youth in Durham. This work was partnered with Durham Housing Authority and has since received funding from both National Institutes of Health and Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

• Created and dissemination informational materials per request of working group members, including NC Consent Law information for minors, ‘PrEP 101’ handouts, and information regarding media coverage of the PrEP patent and lawsuits.

• Partnered with local churches and community-based organization to disseminate findings related to adolescent sexual health needs including the TriPrEP Work Group and Triangle Empowerment Center.

• Conducting trainings in ‘LGBTQ+ Health 101’ at local community organizations, based on feedback from LGBTQ+-identified youth and community advocates from the group.

2011–2021: Advance Care Planning Initiative, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health, Baltimore, MD 

In Consultant role at Johns Hopkins, served as an Advisory Board Member for a church-based intervention to increase advance care planning documentation among African American churches in Baltimore City. Specific activities include:

• Creating a compendium of faith-based HIV initiatives in Baltimore which was disseminated to all participating faith leaders. 

• Planning and leading three advance care planning info sessions with local churches, with a trainer from Compassion and Choices who provided training on Maryland death and dying laws, and state laws on medical orders for life-sustaining treatment (MOLST).

• Forming a current collaborative of churches across Maryland, Virginia, and North Carolina to disseminate the pilot intervention, for which funding is  currently being sought jointly between FHI 360 and Johns Hopkins University.

• Engaging a collaborator at a Raleigh-based historically black college/university as a Co-Investigator, to adapt and pilot test her spirituality-based advance care planning intervention originally designed for African American Baptist churches in Texas.

• Designing a needs assessment-based medication self-monitoring system for residents of Project PLASE, a transitional housing shelter, along with a tailored training program to ensure program sustainability, such as medication storage instructions for HIV medications and opioid- substitution medications. This included staff trainings and dissemination at the all of the shelter’s three locations, and currently support funding solicitations efforts for Project PLASE to sustain this program.

• Conducting needs assessment to inform the interstate advance care planning initiaitive with community-based service delivery organizations including Sisters Together and Reaching (STAR) and Parks & People Foundation  of Baltimore. 

• In 2020, joined the Palliative Care Research Network coordinated through the University of Colorado to connect with leading national scholars on aging research and prospective cohort research studies.

2014–2016: LGBTQ Community Advisory Board, Harvard Medical School, Boston, MA

• In previous Research Fellow role during and after completing doctoral studies, worked on projects addressing LGBTQ+ healthcare inequities. Specific activities included:

• Forming a 40-person community advisory board consisting of community advocates, patient representations, clinical staff, transgender health experts, and healthcare systems which serve LGBTQ+ patients, such as Fenway Institute, the Johns Hopkins Center for Transgender Health, and UC Davis (www.equalitystudy.com).

• Needs assessment with advisory board members to create an educational curriculum for clinicians related to LGBTQ+ health and routine collection and documentation of sexual orientation and gender identity (SO/GI) in healthcare settings.

• Trainings co-led with community advocates from the LGBT Allies at Harvard Medical School (LAHMS) organization at health centers in Boston, MA and Baltimore, MD on best practices for SO/GI collection.

2006–2010 : The Health-Smart Church Program Collaborative, University of Florida School of Medicine, Gainesville, FL 

• In previous Graduate Intern and Associate Director roles during and after completing Bachelor’s and Master’s studies, worked on projects aimed at obesity, prevention among low-income racial/ethnic minorities in Gainesville. This work included: 

• A mixed methods formative evaluation of predictors of engagement in a church-partnered health promotion program in the African American, East Gainesville community, which consisted of 16 churches, 20 pastors, and 48 church leaders.

• Trainings with 300 church members related to creating a ‘health-smart’ church center, installing fitness equipment, creating a health education resource library, and incorporating weight loss and physical activity tips into Sunday sermons. 

• Creating and disseminating a Health-Smart Church recipe cookbook and study summary pamphlet, detailing results of the formative evaluation and showcasing recipes from the study-led health vegetable cook-off conducted at participating churches.