Leadership Team

The SHARP leadership team is responsible for planning and implementing the program, including providing support to scholars and mentors throughout the summer.

Jonathan Fuchs, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Center for Learning and Innovation (CLI) at the San Francisco Department of Public Health. He is a board certified internist, Associate Clinical Professor of Medicine at UCSF, and serves as the Director of the UCSF Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) Mentoring Program.  After completing his MD degree at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey – Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and his MPH degree at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University, Dr. Fuchs completed internal medicine residency training at UCSF.  In 2001, he joined the SFDPH as the Director of Vaccine Studies and Training and his research has focused on the evaluation of experimental preventive HIV vaccine candidates, the evaluation of STI interventions to prevent HIV acquisition, and the use of technology to improve adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis. As the co-Chair of the HIV Vaccine Trials Network Training and Education Committee, Dr. Fuchs is responsible for leading several programs for the Network that focus on preparing early stage investigator for a career in vaccine research. He also leads a number of distance learning initiatives, including blended face-to-face and online workshops for young investigators.

 Willi McFarland, MD, PhD, MPH&TM is the Director of the Center for Public Health Research at SFDPH, where he has worked for 18 years. Dr. McFarland is also Professor of Epidemiology and Biostatistics affiliated with the research units of Global Health Sciences and the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS) at UCSF. He is Board Certified in Preventive Medicine and Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of HIV/AIDS Surveillance and Epidemiology. Dr. McFarland is Co-Director of the Traineeship in AIDS Prevention Studies (TAPS), faculty of the Preventive Medicine Residency Program, Coordinator for training programs for visiting scholars from Africa and the Middle East for the International Traineeship in AIDS Prevention Studies (ITAPS), and Co-Director of the Developmental Core (career promotion) and the International Core for CAPS at UCSF. Dr. McFarland is an alumnus of three San Francisco Bay Area universities. He completed his undergraduate degree and infectious diseases post-doctoral fellowship at Stanford University, his PhD in epidemiology at UCB, his preventive medicine residency in the UCSF/UCB program, and the TAPS fellowship at UCSF. Dr. McFarland has led over 100 extramurally funded research projects, including support from NIH, CDC, HRSA, UNAIDS, WHO, PAHO, SEARO, EMRO, amfAR, the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the Starr Foundation, California DHHS, and the ministries of health of Canada, Brazil, and China. His research focus is on the epidemiology and prevention of HIV among hidden and hard-to-reach populations.

Aminta Kouyate is the Intern Coordinator at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFPDH. 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.

Liz Kroboth is Training Project Manager at the Center for Learning and Innovation at SFDPH. Liz has worked as a project manager and curriculum developer for nearly 10 years. While working at SFDPH, she has overseen a variety of training-related projects, including a course designed to teach community health workers about basic principles of research, an online course on how to engage stakeholders throughout the research process, and the highly successful 2012 and 2013 SHARP programs. Ms. Kroboth received her Bachelor’s degree in Psychology from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill.

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