A Short Biography:

Dr. Nina Harawa is a Professor of Medicine and of Epidemiology. She also has a faculty appointment at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science where she serves as Associate Director of Research for the university’s Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services (Drew CARES). Trained in epidemiology, Dr. Harawa’s research involves developing and testing holistic interventions for encouraging prevention, care, and treatment for HIV, STIs, and substance use disorders and leading efforts to examine the impact of various policies on racial/ethnic health disparities. She also directs the Policy Impact Core of the NIMH-funded UCLA Center for HIV Identification Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS), which examines how proposed and enacted policies may support or hinder efforts to end the HIV epidemic in the United States and abroad. Because of her commitment to health equity, Dr. Harawa started REACH UCLA Health, a faculty group dedicated to increasing access to the UCLA Health system for people of color and those with publicly-funded health coverage.

Dr. Harawa has conducted innovative research with a variety of populations – including sexual minority men of color, Black and Latina cis-gender women, transgender women of all backgrounds, and sexual and gender minorities who have experienced incarceration. Much of this work has involved partnering with local governmental and community organizations. She currently co-leads two multi-site NIH-funded studies. One examines the impacts of incarceration and related interventions and policies on HIV in Black men who have sex with men through agent-based modelling. The second is testing an intervention to help HIV-positive young people leaving incarceration to link to and be retained in HIV medical care. In addition, she leads a California HIV/AIDS Research Program (CHRP) study to test the effectiveness of a peer-supported, incentive- and mobile app-based intervention to encourage PrEP uptake and ongoing HIV/STI screening for people leaving jail.