Matthew Ponticiello

Matthew Ponticiello (he/him) is an MD PhD student pursuing his PhD in Epidemiology of Microbial Diseases through the Yale School of Public Health under the mentorship of Dr. Frederick Altice. His research interests include implementation science, LGBTQ health, the treatment of opioid use disorder in criminal legal settings, and mood disorders. Matt is particularly interested in using mixed methods research to improve the uptake of evidence-based care among marginalized communities. He spent the last year in Lima, Peru as part of the Global Health Emerging Scholars program studying PrEP implementation among men who have sex with men. This work is the foundation of his thesis, titled "Human-Centered Design to Advance HIV Pre-Exposure Prophylaxis Implementation Among Men Who Have Sex with Men in Peru: Examining Stigma, Implementation Determinants, and User Preferences." Matt also collaborates regularly with Dr. Andrés Martin at the Yale Child Study Center on qualitative studies exploring topics related to bipolar disorder and suicidal thinking among adolescents. His ultimate career goal is to become a child and adolescent psychiatrist-scientist conducting mixed methods implementation research.

Matt earned his B.S. in Global and Public Health Sciences at Cornell University. He then worked at the Weill Cornell Center for Global Health under Dr. Radhika Sundararajan. There, his research focused on community-based interventions to improve the uptake of HIV care among medically pluralistic communities. The majority of Matt's work was spent studying novel methods to improve the uptake of HIV care by collaborating with traditional healers in Uganda and Tanzania. Matt also contributed to the development of a community health worker-delivered gestational diabetes screening program in Pune, India.