Christina M. Ramirez, PhD

Christina M. Ramirez, PhD research interests generally relate to uncovering the mechanisms behind HIV and viral pathogenesis. To this end, Christina works closely with investigators in the clinical and basic sciences. Christina is particularly interested in drug resistance mutation/recombination, viral fitness and HIV co-receptor utilization. Christina works to develop methods to understand the evolutionary dynamics of gene regions under the selective pressure of the host immune system and antiretroviral. Christina also is interested in complex, high-dimensional data analysis where we have large p and small n.  This has led to the development of machine learning methods for complex data with correlation.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Breen, E. C., Sehl, M. E., Shih, R., Langfelder, P., Wang, R., Horvath, S., Bream, J. H., Duggal, P., Martinson, J., Wolinsky, S. M., Martínez-Maza, O., Ramirez, C. M., & Jamieson, B. D. (2023). Erratum: Accelerated aging with HIV begins at the time of initial HIV infection. iScience, 26(8), 107381. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.isci.2023.107381


2. Gallay, P. A., Ramirez, C. M., & Baum, M. M. (2023). Acute antagonism in three-drug combinations for vaginal HIV prevention in humanized mice. Scientific reports, 13(1), 4594. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-31695-5


3. Gunawardana, M., Remedios-Chan, M., Sanchez, D., Fanter, R., Webster, S., Webster, P., Moss, J. A., Trinh, M., Beliveau, M., Ramirez, C. M., Marzinke, M. A., Kuo, J., Gallay, P. A., & Baum, M. M. (2023). Preclinical Considerations for Long-acting Delivery of Tenofovir Alafenamide from Subdermal Implants for HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis. Pharmaceutical research, 40(7), 1657–1672. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11095-022-03440-6

Cherie Blair MD, PhD

Cherie Blair MD, PhD is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where she specializes in Infectious Diseases. She went to medical school at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA and completed her residency in Internal Medicine and fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at UCLA. During her fellowship training, she participated in the UCLA STAR program where she obtained a PhD in Health Policy and Management from the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. Her interests include sexually transmitted infections, HIV prevention, substance use, and public health. Currently, her research is primarily focused on the impacts of substance use and sexually transmitted infections on systemic and mucosal inflammation. She is a clinical provider at the UCLA CARE Center, where she focuses on the prevention and treatment of HIV and other STIs.

Contact email: CherieBlair@mednet.ucla.edu 

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Harris, C. L., Blair, C. S., Segura, E. R., Gutiérrez, J., Lake, J. E., Cabello, R., & Clark, J. L. (2024). Sexual network characteristics, condomless anal intercourse, and the HIV care cascade among MSM living with controlled versus uncontrolled HIV infection in Lima, Peru: a population-based cross-sectional analysis. Lancet regional health. Americas, 32, 100722. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lana.2024.100722


2. Temelkovska, T., Moriarty, K., Huerta, L., Perez-Brumer, A., Segura, E., Passaro, R. C., Lake, J. E., Clark, J., & Blair, C. (2023). Social Networks Play a Complex Role in HIV Prevention Knowledge, Attitudes, Practices, and the Uptake of PrEP Through Transgender Women Communities Centered Around Three “Casas Trans” in Lima, Peru: A Qualitative Study. Journal of the International Association of Providers of AIDS Care, 22, 23259582231196705. https://doi.org/10.1177/23259582231196705


3. Blair, C. S., Javanbakht, M., Comulada, W. S., Bolan, R., Shoptaw, S., Gorbach, P. M., & Needleman, J. (2023). Comparing Factors Associated with Increased Stimulant Use in Relation to HIV Status Using a Machine Learning and Prediction Modeling Approach. Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research, 24(6), 1102–1114. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11121-023-01561-x

Chelsea L. Shover, PhD

Chelsea L. Shover, PhD is an epidemiologist and Assistant Professor-in-Residence at the University of California Los Angeles School of Medicine in the Division of General Internal Medicine and Health Services Research. She completed her PhD in Epidemiology at the University of California Los Angeles and a postdoctoral fellowship in Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University. Her research focuses on substance use, infectious disease, and their shared social and structural risk factors. Her 2019 study on the changed association between cannabis laws and opioid overdose mortality was named among that year’s top 10 Proceeding of the National Academy of Science papers contributing to public understanding of science. She co-authored a report published in The Lancet: “Responding to the opioid crisis in North America and beyond: recommendations of the Stanford–Lancet Commission.” Alongside her academic work, she has served as an epidemiologist in government and non-profit positions, most recently as Supervising Epidemiologist for the Los Angeles County Department of Public Health’s COVID-19 response in homeless shelters and encampments. Supported by a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, her lab’s current projects include methods to use rapidly available overdose data to inform public health policy, as well as community-based implementation of harm reduction strategies. Using medical examiner data, her team has identified key local drug supply changes (i.e., fentanyl’s westward spread; xylazine’s increasing presence in various markets) and then worked with policymakers and community organizations to improve on-the-ground overdose prevention.

CV: Chelsea Shover CV - May 2022

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Rosen, A. D., Senturia, A., Howerton, I., Kantrim, E. U., Evans, V., Malluche, T., Miller, J., Gonzalez, M., Robie, B., Shover, C. L., Chang, A. H., Behforouz, H., Nguyen, A., & Thomas, E. H. (2023). A COVID-19 Vaccination Program to Promote Uptake and Equity for People Experiencing Homelessness in Los Angeles County. American journal of public health, 113(2), 170–174. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2022.307147


2. Edwards, G. G., Miyashita-Ochoa, A., Castillo, E. G., Goodman-Meza, D., Kalofonos, I., Landovitz, R. J., Leibowitz, A. A., Pulsipher, C., El Sayed, E., Shoptaw, S., Shover, C. L., Tabajonda, M., Yang, Y. S., & Harawa, N. T. (2023). Long-Acting Injectable Therapy for People with HIV: Looking Ahead with Lessons from Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. AIDS and behavior, 27(1), 10–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03817-z


3. Friedman, J., Godvin, M., Molina, C., Romero, R., Borquez, A., Avra, T., Goodman-Meza, D., Strathdee, S., Bourgois, P., & Shover, C. L. (2023). Fentanyl, heroin, and methamphetamine-based counterfeit pills sold at tourist-oriented pharmacies in Mexico: An ethnographic and drug checking study. Drug and alcohol dependence, 249, 110819. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.110819

Amanda Miller, PhD, MS

Dr. Amanda Miller has been conducting HIV and substance use research since 2010. She received her doctorate from University of California, San Diego (UCSD), her masters from University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) and she is currently a postdoctoral fellow in the Division of Infectious Diseases in the Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA. Dr. Miller’s research primarily focuses on the synergy between alcohol use, experiences of intimate partner violence and HIV. Her dissertation research examined how alcohol use and intimate partner violence impact HIV care and treatment outcomes in Uganda. Her postdoctoral research is focused on addressing perinatal alcohol use among pregnant and breastfeeding women who are at high risk of HIV infection of living with HIV in South Africa. She is also co-investigator on a study to assess the feasibility of integrating point of care syphilis testing into routine antenatal care in Uganda and has ongoing mental health research at the same study site aimed at characterizing drivers of poor mental health and substance use and identifying gaps in mental health literacy in this setting to inform adaptation of interventions to address these issues.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Appa, A., Miller, A. P., Fatch, R., Kekibiina, A., Beesiga, B., Adong, J., Emenyonu, N., Marson, K., Getahun, M., Kamya, M., Muyindike, W., McDonell, M., Thirumurthy, H., Hahn, J. A., Chamie, G., & Camlin, C. S. (2024). Participant perspectives on incentives for TB preventative therapy adherence and reduced alcohol use: A qualitative study. PLOS global public health, 4(4), e0002472. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pgph.0002472


2. Miller, A. P., Dean, S. S., Court, L., Mvududu, R., Mashele, N., Wara, N. J., Myer, L., Shoptaw, S., & Davey, D. L. J. (2024). “So that’s why I found PrEP to be safest way to protect yourself”: exploring IPV experiences and impact on HIV prevention among pregnant and postpartum women in Cape Town, South Africa. BMC public health, 24(1), 481. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12889-024-17871-w


3. Miller, A. P., Appa, A., Muyindike, W., Fatch, R., Kekibiina, A., Beesiga, B., Adong, J., Emenyonu, N., Marson, K., Getahun, M., Kamya, M., Chamie, G., Camlin, C. S., & Hahn, J. A. (2024). A Qualitative Exploration of Intimate Partner Violence Among HIV/TB Coinfected Persons With Problematic Alcohol Use Participating in an Incentive-Based Alcohol/Medication Adherence Intervention in Uganda During COVID-19. Violence against women, 10778012231225229. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1177/10778012231225229

Sabrina L. Smiley, PhD, MPH

Sabrina L. Smiley, PhD, MPH, MCHES is Assistant Professor of Public Health in the Division of Health Promotion and Behavioral Science at San Diego State University School of Public Health. She is currently a combination prevention core scientist at CHIPTS, an inaugural CHIPTS Bridge Fellow (2021-2022), and a past scholar in the UCLA HIV/AIDS, Substance Abuse and Trauma Training Program (HA-STTP). Her NIDA-funded, HA-STTP pilot study examined momentary changes in substance use, sexual risk behavior, and HIV risk perception over time among young adult sexual minority Black men in Washington, D.C. Smiley’s primary research interests are all within the area of health disparities and health equity. Currently, Smiley is leading NIH-funded projects and California Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program-funded projects in addiction risk, public policy, and community engagement. She completed a two-year postdoctoral fellowship in the NCI/FDA-funded Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science in the Department of Preventive Medicine at KSOM of USC before faculty appointment. Smiley received her Ph.D. in sociology from Howard University, where she was a National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellow. She completed her M.P.H. in health behavior at the University of Alabama at Birmingham School of Public Health. Her research findings have been published in journals such as Current HIV/AIDS Reports, Journal of Medical Internet Research, Nicotine & Tobacco Research, and Tobacco Control.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Mei, K. A., Shin, H., & Smiley, S. L. (2024). Commercial Tobacco Retailers Need to Be Included in Research on Policies Restricting the Sale of Menthol Cigarettes. Nicotine & tobacco research : official journal of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, 26(Supplement_2), S143–S146. https://doi.org/10.1093/ntr/ntad252


2. Taggart, T., Smiley, S. L., & Ritchwood, T. D. (2023). Advancing Public Health and Social Equity Through Research, Training, and Action. American journal of public health, 113(S2), S98–S101. https://doi.org/10.2105/AJPH.2023.307340


3. Smiley, S. L., & Brown, N. (2023). Assessing access to smoking cessation services in Southern California HIV safety nets: A secret shopper study. Drug and alcohol dependence reports, 7, 100169. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.dadr.2023.100169

Edgar Enrique Sanchez, MPH

Edgar Enrique Sanchez, BS, serves as the CHIPTS Core Coordinator. Responsibilities include supporting center-wide communications (maintaining the CHIPTS website, email listservs, and social media accounts); collecting and organizing information for evaluating center-related activities; supporting center data compilation and literature reviews; and providing administrative and coordination support for center events and meetings. Prior to working with CHIPTS, Mr. Sanchez provided administrative support to both government agencies and local non-profit organizations in Los Angeles County. He is heavily involved in community outreach, having promoted health education on a series of health challenges: Type 2 Diabetes, Leukemia & Lymphoma, and most recently COVID-19. He is a recent graduate from California State University – Los Angeles and has a Bachelor of Science in Public Health.

Contact: EESanchez@mednet.ucla.edu

Gabriel Edwards, MD, MPH

Gabriel Edwards, MD, MPH, is an Assistant Project Scientist at the UCLA David Geffen School of Medicine. His work centers around studying mobile peer-based service navigation interventions to reduce risk of HIV, STIs, and recidivism among the recently incarcerated. He leads efforts by the Policy Impact Core to disseminate CHIPTS investigators’ research findings to policymakers and policy advocates. Prior to his position at UCLA, he completed a post-doc year at Cedars-Sinai Medical Center where he focused on mental health care transitions for people with serious medical illness leaving the hospital. He earned his BA at University California, Berkeley, MD at Oregon Health & Science University, and most recently his MPH at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health in the Department of Health Policy and Management.

 

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Edwards, G. G., Miyashita-Ochoa, A., Castillo, E. G., Goodman-Meza, D., Kalofonos, I., Landovitz, R. J., Leibowitz, A. A., Pulsipher, C., El Sayed, E., Shoptaw, S., Shover, C. L., Tabajonda, M., Yang, Y. S., & Harawa, N. T. (2023). Long-Acting Injectable Therapy for People with HIV: Looking Ahead with Lessons from Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. AIDS and behavior, 27(1), 10–24. https://doi.org/10.1007/s10461-022-03817-z


2. Edwards, G. G., Reback, C. J., Cunningham, W. E., Hilliard, C. L., McWells, C., Mukherjee, S., Weiss, R. E., & Harawa, N. T. (2020). Mobile-Enhanced Prevention Support Study for Men Who Have Sex With Men and Transgender Women Leaving Jail: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial. JMIR research protocols, 9(9), e18106. https://doi.org/10.2196/18106

Paul Adamson, MD

Paul Adamson MD, MPH is a Clinical Instructor of Medicine at the David Geffen School of Medicine at UCLA, where he specializes in Infectious Diseases. He went to medical school at the UC San Francisco School of Medicine and completed his residency training in Internal Medicine at Yale-New Haven Hospital. He completed fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at UCLA. His interests include public health, sexually transmitted infections, and HIV prevention. Currently, his research is primarily focused on improving the diagnosis and treatment of STIs among key populations in global health settings, with an emphasis in antibiotic-resistant gonorrhea. He also participates in a variety of COVID-19 related research and advocacy projects. He is a clinical provider at the UCLA CARE Center, where he focuses on the prevention and treatment of HIV and other STIs.

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Adamson, P. C., Hieu, V. N., Nhung, P. H., Whiley, D. M., & Chau, T. M. (2024). Ceftriaxone resistance in Neisseria gonorrhoeae associated with the penA-60.001 allele in Hanoi, Viet Nam. The Lancet. Infectious diseases, 24(6), e351–e352. https://doi.org/10.1016/S1473-3099(24)00230-5


2. Bristow, C. C., Mortimer, T. D., Morris, S., Grad, Y. H., Soge, O. O., Wakatake, E., Pascual, R., Murphy, S. M., Fryling, K. E., Adamson, P. C., Dillon, J. A., Parmar, N. R., Le, H. H. L., Van Le, H., Ovalles Ureña, R. M., Mitchev, N., Mlisana, K., Wi, T., Dickson, S. P., & Klausner, J. D. (2023). Whole-Genome Sequencing to Predict Antimicrobial Susceptibility Profiles in Neisseria gonorrhoeae. The Journal of infectious diseases, 227(7), 917–925. https://doi.org/10.1093/infdis/jiad027


3. Adamson, P. C., Bui, H. T. M., Kesteman, T., Nguyen, D. T. N., Nguyen, T. T. H., Van Le, T., van Doorn, R. H., Klausner, J. D., & Le, G. M. (2023). Screening for monkeypox virus infections in men who have sex with men in a sexual health clinic in Hanoi, Viet Nam. The Lancet. Microbe, 4(4), e201–e202. https://doi.org/10.1016/S2666-5247(22)00385-8

Alex Dubov, PhD

Alex (Oleksandr) Dubov, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Behavioral Health and Bioethics at Loma Linda University. He earned his PhD in Bioethics from Duquesne University, where his thesis investigated the use of Behavioral Economics to facilitate crucial choices at the end of life. He has worked at Emory University Hospital as a Palliative Care Counselor and at Florida Hospital as a Certified Healthcare Ethics Consultant. Dr. Dubov completed his postdoctoral training at Yale School of Public Health Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS as a REIDS fellow (Research Education Institute for Diverse Scholars). At Yale, he was awarded a grant to design a public health HIV prevention program based on preferences of Ukrainian LGBT. This research was also supported by the USAID fund and presented to the Ukrainian Ministry of Health. His research interests are in leveraging new and emerging technologies as innovative approaches for supporting the implementation of combination (biomedical, behavioral, and health system) interventions to prevent HIV infection among groups that are epidemiologically at high-risk for infection and whose prevention needs are complicated by their socially marginalized statuses in their communities.

Contact: adubov@llu.edu

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Dubov, A., Basenko, A., Dymaretskyi, O., & Shoptaw, S. (2024). Impact of the Russian invasion on opioid agonist therapy programs in Ukraine: A qualitative study. Drug and alcohol dependence, 255, 111069. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2023.111069


2. Dubov, A., Altice, F. L., Gutierrez, J. I., Wickersham, J. A., Azwa, I., Kamarulzaman, A., Gautam, K., & Shrestha, R. (2023). Pre-exposure prophylaxis service among men who have sex with men in Malaysia: findings from a discrete choice experiment. Scientific reports, 13(1), 14200. https://doi.org/10.1038/s41598-023-41264-5


3. Dubov, A., Krakower, D. S., Rockwood, N., Montgomery, S., & Shoptaw, S. (2023). Provider Implicit Bias in Prescribing HIV Pre-exposure Prophylaxis (PrEP) to People Who Inject Drugs. Journal of general internal medicine, 38(13), 2928–2935. https://doi.org/10.1007/s11606-023-08040-7

Elena Rosenberg-Carlson, MPH

Elena Rosenberg-Carlson, MPH, manages and supports several implementation research and capacity-building projects as the CHIPTS Ending the HIV Epidemic Coordinator and Project Director of the CHIPTS Implementation Science Hub. She has significant experience facilitating public health efforts in partnership with diverse stakeholders, most recently for the infectious disease division at the Minnesota Department of Health. With a background in intervention development, health education, evaluation, and quality improvement, she is passionate about using data-driven, collaborative approaches to address health disparities. Ms. Rosenberg-Carlson received her BA from Carleton College and her MPH from the University of Michigan. She is currently pursuing her doctorate degree in public health with a concentration in implementation science at Johns Hopkins University.

Contact: ERosenberg-Carlson@mednet.ucla.edu

FEATURED PUBLICATIONS:

1. Üsküp, D. K., Nieto, O., Rosenberg-Carlson, E., & Brooks, R. A. (2024). Acceptability and appropriateness of information sessions to increase knowledge and awareness of PrEP and TelePrEP among Latina Women. AIDS care, 1–10. Advance online publication. https://doi.org/10.1080/09540121.2024.2354223


2. Üsküp, D. K., Nieto, O., Rosenberg-Carlson, E., Lee, S. J., Milburn, N. G., & Brooks, R. A. (2022). Acceptability and Appropriateness of Digital PrEP Interventions for Black and Latina Cisgender Women: Perspectives From Service Providers in Los Angeles County. Journal of acquired immune deficiency syndromes (1999), 90(S1), S134–S140. https://doi.org/10.1097/QAI.0000000000002973


3. Jolayemi, O., Bogart, L. M., Storholm, E. D., Goodman-Meza, D., Rosenberg-Carlson, E., Cohen, R., Kao, U., Shoptaw, S., & Landovitz, R. J. (2022). Perspectives on preparing for long-acting injectable treatment for HIV among consumer, clinical and nonclinical stakeholders: A qualitative study exploring the anticipated challenges and opportunities for implementation in Los Angeles County. PloS one, 17(2), e0262926. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0262926

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