Dr. Strathdee, Harold Simon Professor and Chief of the Division of Global Public Health in the Department of Medicine at the University of California San Diego School of Medicine, is an infectious disease epidemiologist who has spent the past two decades focusing on HIV prevention in underserved, marginalized populations in developed and developing countries, including injection drug users, men who have sex with men, and sex workers.
In the past decade, Dr. Strathdee has published more than 400 peer-reviewed publications on HIV prevention and the natural history of HIV and related infections and the evaluation of interventions to reduce harms among substance-using populations. Currently, she is engaged in a number of HIV/STI prevention projects in international settings, including Mexico, India, Canada and Afghanistan. She also leads three NIH-funded studies of HIV risk behaviors among drug users and sex workers on the Mexico-US border, one of which is funded until 2020 by a MERIT award granted by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. She directs the Fogarty-funded AIDS Training Program between academic institutions in San Diego and Tijuana. Dr. Strathdee also directs the UCSD Global Health Initiative and was the founding co-director of the UC Global Health Institute’s Center for Migration and Health.