I am health psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Division of Prevention Science at the Center for AIDS Prevention Studies, Co-Director of the Mentoring Program for the UCSF NIAID-funded Center for AIDS Research (CFAR), and Co-Director of the NIDA-funded Summer HIV/AIDS Research Program. Central to my research and roles at UCSF are a commitment to high-quality mentoring and working on issues of diversity, equity and inclusion.

My two research programs blend principles and methods from health, clinical and quantitative psychology and that are based on a collaborative team science approach. My primary line of research aims to understand and intervene on factors to address health disparities among Latinx communities impacted by HIV. I am particularly interested in applied psychometrics as I believe health disparities research should based on principles of sound measurement, especially of psychological constructs and social factors measured in Spanish or for comparing outcomes across diverse populations. I focuses broadly on using the Multiphase Optimization Strategy (MOST) to design more dynamic and efficient interventions. My second line of research aims to conduct social and behavioral science research to help address some unresolved challenges in HIV cure research, such as promoting consent understanding, measuring psychological experiences of participants going through risky HIV cure trials, and understanding the perspectives, priorities and concerns of people living with HIV who may be interested in participating in HIV cure research.

I have a deep commitment to mentoring across the pipeline, from young people who are aspiring researchers and clinicians through our NIDA-funded Summer HIV/AIDS Research Program (SHARP), up through early-career investigators in our UCSF-Gladstone CFAR Mentoring Program. I am particularly interested in mentoring individuals who are interested in Latinx and HIV health disparities research, and those interested in the social science of HIV cure research.