Course

Steven W. Thrasher, PhD holds the inaugural Daniel H. Renberg chair at Northwestern University’s Medill School, the first journalism professorship in the world created to focus on LGBTQ+ research. He is also a faculty member of Northwestern’s Institute for Sexual and Gender Minority Health and Wellbeing. His writing has been widely published by Scientific American, The New York Times, Nation, The Atlantic, The Journal of American History, BuzzFeed News, Esquire and New York magazine. In 2019,Outmagazine named him one of the 100 most influential and impactful people of the year and in 2020, the Ford Foundation awarded him a grant for Creativity and Free Expression. An alumnus of media jobs with Saturday Night Live, the HBO film the Laramie Project and the NPR Story Corps project, Dr. Thrasher has been a staff writer for the Village Voice and a columnist for the Guardian. He holds a PhD in American Studies and lives in Chicago, New York and in motels at the end of runways. The Viral Under class is his first book. Twitter:@thrasherxy

Noelle Marie Javier, MD is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, Brookdale Department of Geriatrics and Palliative Medicine in New York City. She is a graduate of the University of the Philippines College of Medicine Class of 2002. She finished her residency in Internal Medicine at both Long Island College Hospital, Brooklyn, New York and Jersey City Medical Center, Jersey City, New Jersey. She completed her two-year post-graduate fellowship training in both Geriatric Medicine and Hospice and Palliative Medicine at the University of Michigan Ann Arbor in 2009. She then joined the faculty at the Warren Alpert School of Medicine at Brown University in Providence, Rhode Island before being recruited by the Mount Sinai Health System. In her current capacity as a clinician, educator, and scholar at Mount Sinai, much of her time is spent conducting inpatient consultative service for both subspecialties as well as assistance with the hospital medicine teams. Apart from her clinical duties, she has had opportunities to conduct research, publish, and present at local, regional, national, and international conferences such as the GLMA Annual Conference, American Geriatrics Society (AGS), the American Academy of Hospice and Palliative Medicine (AAHPM), and the International Congress in Palliative Care (ICPC). Her areas of scholarly interest include wound care, pain management, medical education, palliative care in the nursing home, rehabilitation in palliative care, pediatric palliative care, and inclusive and affirming geriatric and palliative care for the LGBTQ population.

Shani Wilson, RPA-C is a board-certified physician assistant (NCCPA) with areas of expertise in LGBTQ+ health, Medicated Opioid Addiction Therapy, Sexual health, Minority health disparities with emphasis on mental health, Trauma informed care and vaccine preventable diseases. Community engagement and activism have been especially important to Shani, she is passionate about giving a voice of the underserved community here in Rochester. She also works closely with local LGBTQ+ organizations such as Rochester Black Pride where she currently serves as one of the co-organizers and is currently Chairing the Police Accountability Board. Recently, Shani was appointed to the American Academy of Physicians Assistants diversity, equality, and inclusion commission. Shani is also a CEI regional champion for the Western NY region. 

Michelle S. Cespedes, MD, MS has been an Associate Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai since 2014. Her research areas of interest are complications and comorbidities of HIV, with an emphasis on HPV, HIV related women's health issues, and HIV prevention in high risk populations. Her basic science interest is genetic factors that predispose HIV infected patients to HPV disease. She is currently the protocol vice-chair of two AIDS Clinical Trial Group (ACTG) studies designed to evaluate the HPV vaccine in HIV infected populations. In 2014, she was named the co-Director of ID Division’s Clinical and Translational Research Center at Mount Sinai and the clinical research site leader of Mt. Sinai West's Samuels Clinic. Nationally, she sits on the ACTG Executive Committee and is the Chair of its Underrepresented Populations Committee.

Oni Blackstock, MD, MHS, is recognized as a thought leader and influencer in the areas of HIV and health equity. She is a primary care and HIV physician, researcher, and the founder and Executive Director of Health Justice, a consulting practice that provides racial and intersectional equity expertise to health-related organizations. Dr. Blackstock recently served as an Assistant Commissioner at the New York City Health Department where she led the City’s response to the HIV epidemic. She holds degrees from Harvard College, Harvard Medical School, and Yale School of Medicine and is passionate about ensuring that all individuals and communities have the resources and support they need to achieve optimal health and wellbeing.

Aviva Cantor (she/her) is a primary care PA at Callen Lorde Community Health Center, a health center that focuses on the health needs of the LGBTQ community. Aviva is the HIV Quality Coordinator and works closely with the HIV Management Team. Aviva is part of the New York State AIDS Institute Clinical Quality of Care Committee. Aviva’s work is rooted in increasing healthcare access, improving health outcomes and educating future medical providers and the community.

Darcy Wooten, MD is a 6th generation Californian and Associate Professor of Medicine in the division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego (UCSD). She did her undergraduate studies in Human Virology at Stanford University before completing medical school and Internal Medicine residency training at UCSF. She also earned a Master of Science degree from UC Berkeley doing research on Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections. She completed her ID fellowship at Harbor UCLA before joining the faculty at UCSD in 2014.Her clinical interests include HIV Medicine and General Infectious Diseases. She serves as the ID Fellowship Program Director and as a course director for the Clinical Foundations course for first and second-year medical students. She is a self-proclaimed Medical Educationist and Med Ed Enthusiast (!).

Jeffrey Birnbaum, MD, MPH is an Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Public Health at SUNY Downstate Medical Center and currently serves as the Principal Investigator and Executive Director of the Health & Education Alternatives for Teens (“HEAT”) Program. Through his leadership at HEAT, Dr. Birnbaum continues to bring SUNY Downstate acclaim at the local, state, national and international levels. HEAT is the only program of its kind in Brooklyn to offer comprehensive medical and mental health care, supportive services, and access to clinical research for HIV+ and at-risk youth, aged 13 to 24.At HEAT, he has provided medical care to hundreds of HIV+ youth ages 13-24 years since 1992. Dr. Birnbaum is an adolescent medicine specialist and Board certified pediatrician who has devoted most of his professional career to working with HIV+ youth. He has built the HEAT Program into a system of care that provides age and developmentally appropriate, culturally competent care for heterosexual, lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender youth who are living with or at very high-risk for HIV/AIDS. Today, HEAT operates a "one-stop" full service clinic, offering a full range of medical, mental health and supportive services that are tailored to meet the special health care needs of young people.

Jeffrey Kwong, DNP, MPH, ANP-BC is a professor and certified Adult-Gerontology Primary Care Nurse Practitioner in the Division of Advanced Practice at Rutgers School of Nursing. He is also a practicing HIV primary care provider at Gotham Medical Group in New York City where he specializes in providing HIV prevention and treatment. He was the former director of the HIV specialty track at Columbia University School of Nursing and the immediate past President of the national Association of Nurses in AIDS Care. Dr. Kwong serves as an expert faculty member for CEI’s HIV Project ECHO, is on the advisory panel for the HIV-Age clinical guidelines group, and a member of ANAC’s HIV & Aging Expert Panel. He is certified as an HIV specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine.