spotlight

 

Josias da Silva Freitas is a community educator and liaison for the Black community at the Instituto de Pesquisa Clinica Evandro Chagas (IPEC) CRS in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. He has worked at IPEC CRS since the early 1990s as part of the community education team recruiting and engaging populations deemed most vulnerable, especially the Black community, accessing, welcoming, and promoting HIV prevention and linkage to care.

Dr. Sunil Suhas Solomon, a member of the HPTN Substance Use Scientific Committee and HPTN 103 protocol team, is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine in Baltimore, Md. His research primarily focuses on preventing and treating HIV, viral hepatitis, and other infectious diseases among vulnerable populations such as people who inject drugs.

Laylla Monteiro, an HPTN 091 Community Working Group member, is an experienced community educator at the Instituto de Pesquisa Clinica Evandro Chagas (IPEC) CRS in Rio de Janeiro. She is responsible for engaging populations deemed at risk for acquiring HIV, including transgender people. Laylla also promotes HIV prevention among the transgender community and develops strategies to expand transgender participation in HIV prevention clinical trials.

Dr. Darren L. Whitfield, a protocol team member for HPTN 096, member of the HPTN Black Caucus, and 2018-2019 Domestic Scholar is an associate professor of social work at the University of Maryland in Baltimore. His primary research focuses on understanding the impact of psychosocial and structural factors on health and mental health outcomes among Black men who have sex with men (MSM), Black transgender women, and LGBTQ communities.