OUR TEAM
Jessica Brown, MPH, is the Manager of Training and Workforce Development for the Center for Learning & Innovation at the SFDPH—a center of excellence in training and professional development that seeks to bolster the capacity of San Francisco’s public health workforce. For over 10 years, Jessica has served in both the government and private sector of public health where she has gained experience in health program development and management. She has gained much of her experience at the California Department of Public Health, Office of AIDS, HIV Surveillance and HIV Prevention Branches. There, she served as lead in managing the HIV Incidence and Molecular HIV Surveillance Programs, as well as provide high impact HIV prevention technical and capacity building assistance for local health departments. In addition, she has also developed trainings for the Black AIDS Institute on Social Determinants of Health, HIV Treatment Strategies, HIV Science, Current Directions in HIV Research, and Biomedical Interventions.
Karina Ng is the Program Assistant at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFPDH. Karina holds a Bachelor of Science in Human Development and a Bachelor of Arts in Political Science from University of California, Davis. During her time at UC Davis, Karina mentored underserved students at Douglass Middle School and interned at Senator Mike McGuire’s State Capital Office. Both working with students and navigating the political system solidified her interest in the impact of public policy and practices on communities—especially underserved communities. Karina is excited to give back to San Francisco, her community in which she grew up in, by working at SFPDH and supporting SHARP scholars in their journey.
Sean Arayasirikul, PhD is a Medical Sociologist whose work is focused on the entanglements of technology in society; in particular, its role in constructing emerging conceptions of health, illness and identity, and as a means to disrupt the production of stigma, discrimination, social isolation and negative health outcomes. He was an National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) T32 Pre-Doctoral Fellow at the Alcohol Research Group, UC Berkeley. He was named an American Sociological Association Minority Fellow. He served as the Health Literacy and Health Policy Fellow at the United States Department of Health & Human Services (DHHS) and as a Scholar at the Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA). In Washington, D.C., he oversaw mobile health and HIV testing initiatives at Whitman-Walker Health and was a mobile HIV Case Manager for newly diagnosed HIV-positive youth in Los Angeles County. Deeply committed to adolescent health, Sean has represented youth communities in HIV community planning processes as a member of the HIV Prevention Planning Committees in Los Angeles, Washington, D.C., and San Francisco. Currently, Sean is a Research Scientist at the Center for Public Health Research at the San Francisco Department of Public Health and is a Co-PI and Co-I on a number of projects focused on technology, PrEP, and HIV among racial, sexual and gender minority populations.
Erin Wilson, DrPH is a research scientist at the San Francisco Department of Public Health (SFDPH) and an Assistant Professor in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Wilson is laser focused on better health and wellness among transwomen and youth. Her research focus for the last two decades has been determining the reasons transwomen and youth are at high risk for HIV, on decreasing HIV risk factors, and increasing access to HIV prevention and care resources for transwomen and youth. Dr. Wilson is an expert in qualitative research, mixed methods studies, social epidemiological research, sampling hidden populations and community-based participatory research. She is currently the Principal Investigator (PI) of a 5-year NIH R01 to longitudinally study HIV risk and resilience among trans youth in the San Francisco Bay Area (www.theshinestudy.org), and of an international prospective HIV incidence study of transwomen in four countries (www.transnationalstudy.org), and of a Demonstration Project to increase PrEP access in the trans community (www.staystudy.org). She is also the PI for the evaluation of a Special Projects of National Significance to increase engagement and retention in HIV care among transgender women of color and among young gay and transwomen. Dr. Wilson’s international experience has focused on formative research to inform behavioral surveillance studies among key populations at risk for HIV/AIDS in Mozambique, Zambia, and the Ivory Coast, study ART adherence in Kenya and conduct HIV risk studies of transwomen in Brazil and Nepal. Dr. Wilson is committed to the growth of scientists interested in serving trans and other communities impacted by HIV in the US and around the globe, and she looks forward to mentoring the next generation of HIV research scholars.
Jonathan Fuchs, MD, MPH, is the Co-Principal Investigator of SHARP. He is an Associate Professor of Medicine at UCSF and is the Director of the Center for Learning & Innovation at the SFDPH—a center of excellence in training and professional development that seeks to bolster the capacity of San Francisco’s public health workforce. For the past 15 years, Dr. Fuchs has led clinical investigations of novel HIV prevention strategies including experimental HIV vaccines, PrEP, and technology-based approaches to optimize PrEP adherence. He is the co-Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research Mentoring Program and is the Principal Investigator of a CDC-funded Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) Program that supports local, state and territorial health departments nationwide as they implement High Impact HIV prevention.
Phillip Coffin, M.D., M.I.A., F.A.C.P. is the Co-Principal Investigator of SHARP. He is the Director of Substance Use Research at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He is a board certified internal medicine and infectious diseases clinician; specific foci of Dr. Coffin’s training include HIV management, buprenorphine maintenance, addiction management, toxicology, and viral hepatitis care. As Director, Dr. Coffin oversees several pharmacologic and behavioral trials that aim to reduce substance use and related risk behaviors for blood-borne virus infection. Since the early 1990s, Dr. Coffin has been involved in developing and studying services for drug users, including syringe exchange, pharmacotherapy, and overdose prevention programming.
Aminta Kouyate is the former Intern Coordinator at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFPDH and a SHARP alumnus. As a SHARP scholar, Aminta investigated the feasibility and acceptability of implementing a mobile health adherence support strategy for Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis or PrEP with Dr. Jonathan Fuchs, Dr. Al Liu, and Kristefer Stojanovski. After finishing her bachelor’s degree, Aminta returned to the SHARP program as the program coordinator. She currently provides technical assistance to branches throughout the Population Health Division, participates in the SFDPH Training and Workforce Development Committee and supports intern coordination activities with the Capacity Building Assistance (CBA) program. Ms. Kouyate received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of California at Berkeley.
Advisory Committee
Barbara Garcia, MA, Director, San Francisco Department of Public Health
James Loyce, MSW, Consultant; formerly with Black Coalition on AIDS
Torsten Neilands, PhD, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, University of California, San Francisco
Art Reingold, PhD, University of California, Berkeley School of Public Health
Past Contributers
Willi McFarland, MD, PhD, MPH&TM is the Director of the Center for Public Health Research at SFDPH.
Liz Kroboth is the former Training Project Manager at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFDPH.
May Sudhinaraset, PhD is a former mentor.
Kelly Taylor, PhD, MS is a former mentor.
