Faculty Mentors

This list is not complete, but includes faculty who have mentored students in the past or who are interested in serving as mentors in the future.

Nadia Abdala, DVM, PhD

Associate Research Scientist EPH
Dr. Abdala's background is in applied clinical virology, and her past research has focused on questions regarding HIV transmission among injection drug users. She has investigated how heating drugs prior to injection affects HIV transmission and has assessed the effectiveness of bleach and other disinfectants in reducing HIV transmission risks via contaminated syringes. She is involved in studies of the effectiveness of intervention programs to reduce the spread of HIV in Russia.

Serap Aksoy, PhD

Professor of EPH
Dr. Aksoy’s interests are in the molecular basis of biological complexity that determines host-microbe interactions. Her studies focus on tsetse flies, which transmit African trypanosomes. She is investigating the molecular aspects of tsetse immunity during parasite transmission, with the goal of manipulating these responses to block disease transmission.

Frederick L. Altice, MD

Associate Professor of Internal Medicine/AIDS Director Clinical and Community Research
Dr. Altice is interested in health outcomes and interventions associated with the prevention and treatment of infectious disease (HIV/AIDS, Hepatitis C, Tuberculosis, etc) complications among drug users. He is following longitudinal cohorts of injecting and non-injecting drug users to examine their health status, barriers to and utilization of medical, psychiatric and drug treatment services.

Michele Barry, MD

Professor of Medicine and EPH Director Office of International Health
Dr. Barry’s research interests are in the areas of clinical tropical diseases, traveler and refugee health, ethical dilemmas of western researchers working in developing countries as well as how multinational industries and sanctions can impact health. Richard Bucala, MD Professor of Internal Medicine, Rheumatology and EPH Dr. Bucala's research is focused on the mechanisms by which host immunity converts from a protective response to one producing disease and tissue pathology, including both autoimmune and infectious diseases, such as malaria.

Michael Cappello, MD

Professor of Pediatrics, Microbial Pathogenesis and EPH Director World Fellows Program
Dr. Cappello’s research centers on pediatric parasitology with a focus on hookworm pathogenesis and vaccine development. Dr. Cappello also is interested in international child health and international adoption.

Brian Forsyth, MB, CHB, FRCP

Professor of Pediatrics, Associate Professor at the Child Study Center
Dr. Forsyth’s research interests are in the areas of mother-to-child HIV transmission, rapid HIV testing of women in labor, the effects of HIV on pregnancy outcomes, and predictors of progression of HIV disease in children.

Gerald Friedland, MD

Director Yale AIDS Program Professor of Medicine and EPH
Dr. Friedland’s research interests have focused on HIV disease in underserved populations in the United States, and most recently South Africa. These include the transmission of HIV among HIV seropositives, natural history and clinical manifestations of HIV infection, clinical trials of new antiretroviral and opportunistic infection therapies and adherence to these therapies. Dr. Friedland's recent work has included study of multi- and extensively drug-resistant tuberculosis in Tugela Ferry, KZN, South Africa.

Joel Gelernter, MD

Professor of Psychiatry, Genetics and Neurobiology
Dr. Gelernter’s research focuses on the study of genetics of substance dependence, as well as a range of behavioral phenotypes, panic and other anxiety disorders, schizophrenia, and affective disorders. In addition to neuroimaging measures, Dr. Gelernter’s lab examines genetic polymorphisms, both on a molecular level, and from the perspective of population genetics.

Nora Groce, PhD

Associate Professor of EPH and Anthropology
Dr. Groce is a medical anthropologist, interested in global health and international development, with particular emphasis on cross-cultural systems of health care and health as human rights issues. Her research interests include issues of disability in international health and development, violence as a global public-health problem and equity in access to health care in ethnic and minority communities.

Robert Heimer, PhD

Professor of EPH, Associate Professor of Pharmacology
Dr. Heimer's major research efforts include both field-based prevention work and laboratory investigations of disease transmission risks. The field-based work concentrates on the scientific evaluation of prevention programs serving drug users. These include syringe exchange, hepatitis vaccination and overdose prevention. His laboratory work concentrates on the virological assessment of the risk of syringe sharing and other drug-injection behaviors that may transmit HIV-1 and hepatitis C virus.

Debbie Humphries, PhD

MPH Clinician of EPH
Dr. Humphries is a lecturer in the global health division at the School of Public Health and has mentored Yale students in international research in years past. Jeffrey Kahn MD, PhD Associate Research Scientist of Pediatrics and EPH Dr. Kahn’s research focuses on pediatric infectious diseases with a particular focus on Respiratory Syncytial Virus (RSV), human metapneumovirus, coronaviruses, influenza and recombinant vaccines.

Trace Kershaw, PhD

Assistant Professor of EPH
Dr. Kershaw's research is in the area of HIV/STD prevention and reproductive and maternal-child health epidemiology. He is involved in research projects assessing the influence of behavioral interventions aimed at reducing the occurrence of HIV/STD and negative perinatal and postnatal outcomes for young women in the United States and abroad.

Kaveh Khoshnood, PhD

Assistant Professor of EPH
Dr. Khoshnood is an infectious disease epidemiologist. His primary research interests are the epidemiology, prevention and control of HIV/AIDS and tuberculosis among drug users, prisoners and other at-risk populations in the United States and in resource-poor countries. Dr. Khoshnood's other interests are the examination of the links between health and human rights, the role of health in international relations and the ethical dilemmas in research involving vulnerable populations. Dr. Khoshnood conducts research and mentors researchers from China, India, Russia, South Africa and Iran and teaches courses on HIV/AIDS, infectious disease and research ethics.

James Leckman, MD

Professor of Child Psychiatry, Psychology and Pediatrics
Dr. Leckman’s primary research interests are in the evaluation and treatment of Tourette’s syndrome and early onset obsessive-compulsive disorder. He has also done work in numerous other areas of child and adolescent psychiatry as the current director of research for The Child Study Center.

Robert Malison, MD

Associate Professor of Psychiatry
Dr. Malison’s research group is interested in the neurobiology and genetics of substance dependence disorders, with a particular focus on psychostimulant (cocaine and methamphetamine) dependence. Methodologies employed vary, and include human laboratory methods designed to evaluate the regulation of cocaine self-administration, reinforcement, and cocaine behavioral effects. In collaboration with Chulalongkorn University in Bangkok, his group is undertaking a feasibility study of the genetics of opioid and methamphetamine dependence in a northern Thai (Hmong) hill tribe population.

Elijah Paintsil, MD

Associate Research Scientist of Pharmacology and Pediatrics
Dr. Paintsil’s primary research and clinical interests are in tropical and pediatric medicine with a special focus on multi-drug resistant HIV infection, prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV and antiretroviral treatment in resource-limited settings. David Paltiel PhD Professor of EPH and School of Management Dr. Paltiel works in the field of operations research and disease simulation modeling. He conducts cost-effectiveness analyses on a variety of medical technologies and public health activities. His current research focuses on model-based evaluation of HIV/AIDS testing, prevention, treatment, and care in vulnerable and underserved populations in the United States and abroad.