MEET THE TEAM
Adam Carrico
I am a clinical-health psychologist with extensive experience in developing and testing behavioral interventions targeting the intertwining epidemics of substance use and HIV/AIDS. During the past 15 years, my clinical research program has focused on boosting the effectiveness motivational enhancement interventions such as contingency management (CM) and motivational interviewing (MI) for HIV/AIDS prevention with people who use stimulants such as methamphetamine. I recently completed a randomized controlled trial of a positive affect intervention designed to boost the effectiveness of CM for stimulant abstinence with sexual minority men living with HIV who use methamphetamine. To date, this is the only trial to demonstrate that a behavioral intervention can achieve durable and clinically meaningful reductions in HIV viral load with people who use substances. My team was also among the first to document that sexual minority men who use stimulants experience profound difficulties navigating the pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) care continuum. I am currently leading four NIH-funded randomized controlled trials testing behavioral interventions to optimize the benefits of PrEP and HIV treatment as prevention in this high priority population of sexual minority men who use stimulants.
Matthew Spinelli, MD
I am an HIV and Infectious Diseases physician who sees patients within the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) Ward 86 Clinic. My research comes out of my experiences in clinic—many people living with HIV have trouble entering medical care or staying engaged with their medical care. An important focus of this work is on the development of interventions to improve engagement in HIV care and to improve adherence to HIV antiretroviral therapy, in particular examining strategies that clinics can use to provide better and more effective services for people living with HIV. This work broadly falls under the discipline of Implementation Science, and emerging research field which seeks to improve equitable access to effective medical therapies. At UCSF, I am the co-director of the Implementation Science Short Course and the Intervention Design Course in the UCSF Department of Epidemiology. Finally, I am a member of the Partnership for Research in Implementation Science for Equity, or PRISE center, a collaboration between the San Francisco Department of Public Health and UCSF that seeks to use implementation science methods to advance health equity.
Dustin Duncan
Dustin T. Duncan, ScD is Associate Dean for Health Equity Research and Associate Professor of Epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health. Dr. Duncan is an internationally recognized Social and Spatial Epidemiologist.
Dr. Duncan is a sought-after global thought leader and innovative researcher. His pioneering research broadly seeks to understand how social and contextual factors especially neighborhood characteristics influence population health. Dr. Duncan’s intersectional and health equity-based research focuses on gay, bisexual and other sexually minoritized men and transgender people of color across the African diaspora including in the U.S., Caribbean and Africa.
Dr. Duncan’s work appears in leading public health, epidemiology, medical, geography, criminology, demography, and psychology journals. Working in collaborations with scholars across the world, Dr. Duncan has over 200 high-impact articles (>120 first or senior-authored), book chapters and books cited over 8,900 times; Dr. Duncan’s research has appeared in major media outlets including U.S. News & World Report, The Washington Post, The New York Times and CNN. Dr. Duncan’s work has been funded by the National Institutes of Health, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the HIV Prevention Trials Network, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the Verizon Foundation, and the Aetna Foundation.
Dr. Duncan is an award-winning leader who have received several scientific contribution, mentoring and leadership awards including from the National Academy of Medicine (NAM), the Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health (HSPH) and the Interdisciplinary Association for Population Health Science (IAPHS). In 2020, Dr. Duncan proudly received the Mentor of the Year Award from Columbia University Irving Medical Center’s Irving Institute for Clinical and Translational Research.
At Columbia, Dr. Duncan also directs Columbia’s Spatial Epidemiology Lab as well as co-directs the epidemiology department’s Social and Spatial Epidemiology Unit and co-directs the Health Equity Core in the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies. In addition, Dr. Duncan leads an eponymous foundation in Harlem, New York.
Renessa Shamar Williams
Renessa Shamar Williams, PhD, RN
Dr. Williams research aims to understand the individual- (e.g., depression, substance use) interpersonal- (e.g., discrimination, violence) and structural- (racism, heterosexism) factors that complicate health inequities among individuals with HIV, especially persons of racial/ethnic minority backgrounds (Blacks/African Americans) and/or sexual minority men. In collaboration with the Florida Department of Health and the University of Florida Southern HIV and Alcohol Research Consortium, Dr. Williams has coordinated efforts to document drivers of stigma and developed strategies to mitigate stigma in Florida. This body of research was recognized by the AIDS Institute in efforts to promote policy development, inform intervention strategies, and highlight population-specific barriers to HIV prevention, care, and treatment.
Fields of interest: HIV treatment as prevention; stigma; intersectionality; health equity