About WRI Members

The membership structure for the WRI is a formalized process, with members asked to serve a three-year term. Members are chosen based on their expertise and the knowledge they will add to the intensive annual meeting and subsequent spin-off projects. Members are thoughtleaders and are comprised of researchers, academics, as well as representatives from industry, government and the community. All WRI members donate their considerable time and expertise to this initiative without compensation (both WRI members and invited speakers attend without honorarium or other compensation). This is exceptionally unique and speaks to the value the members ascribe to the work of the WRI and their time spent focusing on this important initiative.  Members will be asked to make every effort to attend the annual meetings and participate in at least one project during the term, such as editorial or white paper development, ad hoc meetings with research groups, or other activities as identified by the WRI.  

Please see individual bios of the WRI members below (continued on Page 2).

Kathryn Anastos is professor of medicine, epidemiology and population health at Albert Einstein College of Medicine in Bronx, New York. She is principal investigator of the Bronx/Manhattan Women’s Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), the Rwanda Women’s Interassociation Study and Assessment in Kigali, Rwanda and the Central Africa International Epidemiologic Databases to Evaluate AIDS (IeDEA) in Rwanda, Burundi and Cameroon. She is a founder of Women's Equity in Access to Care and Treatment (WE-ACTx, www.actx.org) and currently serves as WE-ACTx's Director of Clinical Systems and Scientific Capacity Building. Dr. Anastos earned her medical degree at the University of California, San Diego. She completed an internship and a residency in the Internal Medicine Residency Program in Social Medicine at Montefiore Medical Center, where she was chief resident.

Certified in Internal Medicine, Dr. Anastos is a Fellow of the New York Academy of Medicine and a member of the International AIDS Society, the American College of Physicians and the National Association of AIDS Physicians. Dr. Anastos speaks and writes frequently on topics including HIV and women’s health.

Laura Armas has been the Clinical Director for the Texas/Oklahoma AIDS Training center since 2003. She has served as the Chairperson of the Women and HIV International Clinical Conference since 2004. Dr. Armas serves as the Executive Sponsor for the Texas Perinatal HIV Project, the Texas Lead Physician for the CDC Medical Monitoring Project, Team Leader for the Women’s Health Project for the AETC National Resource Center, Principal Investigator for Parkland Site of the HIV Research Network (HIVRN) and co-investigator in several trials at the UT-Southwestern HIV Clinical Trials Unit, including the GRACE Trial.

Dr. Armas has contributed to a number of international HIV meetings, including the 2009 International AIDS Society Conference and the 2008 International AIDS Society World AIDS Conference. Dr. Armas is certified in Internal medicine and is an American Academy of HIV Medicine Specialist. She received her MD at La Salle University in Mexico City in 1986.

Judith Auerbach is Vice President, Science and Public Policy at the San Francisco AIDS Foundation (SFAF), where she is responsible for developing, leading and managing SFAF’s science and policy agenda. Prior to joining SFAF, Dr. Auerbach served as Vice President, Public Policy and Program Development at amfAR, where she headed the Public Policy Office in Washington DC. Dr. Auerbach came to amfAR in 2003, after serving from 1995 to 2003 as Director of the Behavioral and Social Science Program and HIV Prevention Science Coordinator in the Office of AIDS Research at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Dr. Auerbach received her PhD in sociology from the University of California, Berkeley, in 1986. She has served on numerous professional and advisory groups, including the Council of the American Sociological Association, the Global HIV Prevention Working Group and the NIH/OAR Microbicides Research Working Group. Dr. Auerbach received the 2004 Feminist Activist Award from Sociologists for Women in Society in recognition of her work on women and HIV/AIDS, the 2005 Mentor Award from the Public Leadership Education Network, a 2006 Research in Action Award from the Treatment Action Group and the 2008 Career Award from the Sociologists AIDS Network.

Dawn Averitt Bridge was diagnosed with HIV in 1988 at age 19 and has since become one of the nation’s most prominent HIV and AIDS advocates as well as an accomplished speaker and published writer on women’s health issues. As the founder of the Women’s Research Initiative on HIV/AIDS (WRI), Dawn has been instrumental in shifting the research paradigm to include more women and people of color. Ms. Averitt Bridge is the founder of The Well Project, a non-profit organization formed in 2002 to improve the lives of women living with HIV and AIDS and change the course of the AIDS pandemic through a comprehensive focus on treatment and prevention for women.

Ms. Averitt Bridge was recently named to the Presidential Advisory Committee on HIV/AIDS. Her numerous board and panel affiliations range from a Food and Drug Administration Advisory Panel to several NIH Working Groups. Dawn is a member of the Perinatal HIV Guidelines Working Group as well as a member of the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council. She has served on the organizing committees of several important scientific conferences, such as the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections and the National Women and HIV Conference. Dawn also serves as an advisory board member for most of the pharmaceutical companies involved in the HIV arena. In July 2007, Dawn received a Women Leading Global Change Award from the World YWCA for her leadership in the HIV and AIDS pandemic.

National Institute of Health Office of AIDS Research

Victoria Cargill is the director of Minority Research and Clinical Studies at the Office of AIDS Research, where she has been since 1998. She completed her medical education at Boston University School of Medicine and her residency at the Brigham and Women’s Hospital of Harvard University, receiving numerous awards for clinical excellence and compassionate care. After an Andrew W. Mellon Fellowship in Clinical Epidemiology at the University of Pennsylvania, she was recruited to Case Western Reserve University, where she served as teacher, clinician and researcher, achieving the rank of Professor of Medicine – only the second African-American woman to do so in the history of the medical school.

She has contributed to local and national radio programs, including Morning Edition on National Public Radio, and to popular magazines such as Ebony. Named as one of America’s best physicians since 2004, and a member of the American Academy of HIV Medicine, she continues to care for people living with HIV infection and other general medical problems as a volunteer physician in Southeast Washington, DC.

Dr. Susan Cohn is a Professor in Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases at Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine. Dr. Cohn is an expert in HIV medicine, infectious disease, HIV clinical trials and health services outcomes research. She has been an active participant in the NIH/NIAID AIDS Clinical Trials Group since 1988, and has held numerous leadership positions including Chair of the Women’s Health Committee, Chair of the ACTG Outcomes Committee, Vice Chair of the Underrepresented Populations Committee. She currently serves as the Chair of the Women’s Health Inter-Network Scientific Committee. In 2001, she received the Constance B. Wofsy Award that recognizes investigators who have made significant contributions to research in HIV-infected women, to caring for HIV-positive women and to mentoring junior investigators. Her current research areas have included enhancing enrollment in HIV clinical trials, improving adherence to HIV medications, contraception issues among women with HIV, clinical trials for HIV management and pregnancy and HIV provider behavior in both urban and rural America.

Dr. Cohn received her MD from Cornell University Medical College and her MPH from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. She is a member of the Perinatal HIV-1 Guidelines Working Group that revises the Public Health Service Task Force Recommendations for Use of Antiretroviral Drugs in Pregnant HIV-1-Infected Women for Maternal Health and Interventions to Reduce Perinatal HIV-1 Transmission in the United States.

Elizabeth Connick is an immunologist with a specific interest in the immunopathogenesis of HIV-1 infection within lymphoid tissues. She obtained her undergraduate degree in Anthropology from Bryn Mawr College in 1978, her MD from Harvard University in 1988, completed her internal medicine residency at Columbia Presbyterian Hospital in 1991 and her postdoctoral fellowship in Infectious Diseases at the University of Colorado, Denver in 1994. She has been a member of the faculty at the University of Colorado since 1994, currently as an Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Diseases.

She is well known for studies of immune reconstitution in HIV-infected individuals, including immune reconstitution inflammatory syndromes and clinical trials of immune-based therapies. She has recently developed an interest in understanding the immunopathogenesis of HIV-1 infection in women, including the biological basis of sex differences in viral loads and hormonal influences on HIV-1 pathogenesis in women, particularly within the genital tract. She serves as Director of the University of Colorado Center for AIDS Research Immunology Core and the Associate Program Director of the University of Colorado Clinical Translational Research Unit in Boulder.

Judith Currier is Professor of Medicine, Associate Chief, Division of Infectious Diseases and Co-Director of the Center for AIDS Research and Education Center (CARE) at the University of California Los Angeles. Dr. Currier has been actively involved in clinical care of HIV-infected adults and in research to identify optimal management strategies for the treatment of HIV infection with a focus on women. She has played a leadership role in the NIH-sponsored AIDS Clinical Trials Group and is currently the Principal Investigator of the UCLA Clinical Trials Unit. Her areas of expertise include clinical trials of antiretroviral therapy, cardiovascular complications of HIV infection and treatment, and sex differences in treatment outcomes. In addition to her research activities, she serves on a number of guideline panels including the U.S. DHHS Antiretroviral Treatment Panel.

Rebecca Denison is the Founder of WORLD (Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases), an Oakland-based information, support and advocacy network for HIV-positive women and their loved ones. She founded WORLD with her husband, Daniel, in 1991, one year after her own diagnosis with HIV. The network quickly grew to include HIV-positive women across the globe, with a monthly newsletter readership of 12,000 people in 80 countries. Over the coming years she trained 80 women to replicate WORLD's "HIV University" in 40 cities.  

Rebecca has been a consultant to the National Institutes of Health (NIH), the Institute of Medicine (IOM), and the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA), and has conducted trainings and presentations on women and HIV throughout the United States, and in Uganda, South Africa, Canada, Switzerland, Germany and Japan. For her work in women and AIDS, Rebecca has received a number of awards including the AIDS Candlelight Memorial and Mobilization Award, Senator Barbara Boxer's "Women Making History" award, the United Nations 50th Anniversary "Women Honoring Women" award, and induction into the Alameda County Women's Hall of Fame.

Rebecca's proudest achievement is parenting two wonderful daughters, Sophia and Sarah. Born in 1996, both are HIV-negative and will recently entered high school in the fall of 2010. Rebecca has been living with HIV for 28 years.

Shari Dworkin is Associate Professor and Vice Chair in the Department of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of California at San Francisco (UCSF). She is Affiliated Faculty at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies and is an Affiliated Faculty member in Global Health Sciences, UCSF. She is a founding member of the UC Global Health Institute Center of Expertise on Women’s Health and Empowerment. Her research centers on the intersection of economic empowerment and HIV/AIDS for at-risk women, including research on microfinance and property rights. Her research also emphasizes working with men as partners in HIV/AIDS prevention, treatment and care. Dr. Dworkin is an Associate Editor of the Archives of Sexual Behavior and is on the Editorial Board for the Journal of Sex Research and Gender and Society.

Dr. Dworkin received her PhD in Sociology from the University of Southern California and a MS in Biostatistics from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

Judith Feinberg is Professor of Medicine and Associate Chair of Medicine for Faculty Development at the University of Cincinnati College of Medicine. She has worked in the field of HIV/AIDS since her infectious diseases training at UCLA from 1982 – 1984. She was instrumental in developing the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) as one of the early staff members at the Division of AIDS, National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. Dr. Feinberg held a faculty position at the Johns Hopkins School of Medicine before going to the University of Cincinnati in 1995. She is a well-known investigator and leader in antiretroviral therapy, the prevention and management of AIDS-associated opportunistic infections and HIV disease in women. She was the 2003 recipient of the Constance B. Wofsy Women's Health Investigator Award.

Dr. Feinberg has served on the ACTG Executive Committee, as chair of the ACTG Opportunistic Infections Committee and in numerous other capacities within the ACTG; as a member of the FDA’s Antiviral Drugs Advisory Committee, associate editor of AIDS Clinical Care and past chair of the board of the American Academy of HIV Medicine.

Carrie Foote is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Indiana University, where she teaches courses on the sociology of health and illness, particularly HIV/AIDS, and qualitative methods. Her current research focuses on the social aspects of having children and parenting in the context of HIV in varying cultural contexts (United States, Kenya and the Middle East). As a woman who has been living with HIV for more than 20 years, she has personally dealt with challenges around having children and parenting and has witnessed others’ similar struggles and joys and has long been committed to both researching these issues and engaging in advocacy efforts around the reproductive rights of the HIV afflicted.

Dr. Foote has served on numerous HIV clinical, care and prevention advisory boards in Indiana and helped found the Indiana Family AIDS Network. She recently participated in the 2010 Office of AIDS Research Social and Behavioral HIV Prevention Research Think Tank and was appointed to the NIH Office of AIDS Research Advisory Council. She received her PhD from the University of Colorado Boulder in 2002.

Monica Gandhi is an Associate Professor of Medicine, Divisions of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Diseases at UCSF. Dr. Gandhi completed her MD at Harvard Medical School, and did her residency training in Internal Medicine, completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases and a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, all at UCSF. She obtained a Masters in Public Health from Berkeley in 2001 with a focus on Epidemiology and Biostatistics and has been on faculty at UCSF since 2003.

Dr. Gandhi directs the HIV Consult Service at San Francisco General Hospital and attends on the HIV and Infectious Diseases consult services. She serves as the Education Director of the HIV/AIDS Division and co-directs the “Communicable Diseases of Global Health Importance” course in the Masters of Science in Global Health Sciences at UCSF. She serves as an HIV and primary care provider in the Women’s HIV Clinic at Ward 86, a multidisciplinary specialty clinic for HIV-infected women in San Francisco. Her research efforts have focused on HIV/AIDS in U.S. women through the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), a large prospective cohort study established in 1994 to study the natural history, clinical and laboratory findings of HIV in women.

Yasmin Halima is the Director of the Global Campaign for Microbicides, an international NGO based in Washington DC with offices in Johannesburg and Nairobi. The mission of the Global Campaign is to expand HIV prevention options for women through ethical research, effective policy and stronger civil society engagement. As consultant, Yasmin specialised in HIV research in resource-limited countries, working closely with the US Centers for Disease and Prevention (CDC), US National Institutes of Health as well as scientists, physicians and activists engaged with HIV treatment access and research. Yasmin also served as Consultant to the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation facilitating stakeholder dialogue in biomedical prevention. She established the International AIDS Society Industry Liaison Forum (IAS-ILF), bringing together pharmaceutical executives with developing world scientists. She served on the board of the European AIDS Treatment Group (EATG) and as Vice-President of the US AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition (ATAC). She completed her MPH in Global Health at Columbia University, New York. She currently teaches health and international development at the American University in DC. Yasmin was recently awarded the Asian Women of Achievement Social and Humanitarian Award in the UK recognising her work on HIV, women and marginalised communities.

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>>>WRI Member Bios Continued ( Page 2)