Adedotun Ogunbajo, PhD, MPH

Adedotun Ogunbajo is the Director of Research at Us Helping Us with a PhDcial health sciences from Brown University, and a MPH and behavioral sciences from Yale University. His research interests are around the intersection of structural barriers and sexual health outcomes among racial and sexual minority communities both in the United States and various Sub-Saharan African countries.experienced public health researcher with a focus on structural barriers and sexual health outcomes for minoritized populations both nationally and globally. He holds a PhD in behavioral and social health sciences from Brown University, and a MPH in social and behavioral sciences from Yale University. His dissertation explored how psychosocial health outcomes and substance use influences sexual risk taking among gay and bisexual men in Nigeria. As a Yerby Fellow at Harvard University, he is continuing to broadly focus on the intersection of structural barriers and sexual health outcomes among racial and sexual minority communities both in the United States and various Sub-Saharan African countries.

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH

Maranda C. Ward, Ed.D, MPH, is an assistant professor and director of equity in the Department of Clinical Research and Leadership in the GW School of Medicine and Health Sciences. Dr. Ward is an expert in advancing anti-racism efforts within health professions education and in designing curricula to enable students and faculty to competently promote health and racial equity in practice. Her research focuses on diversity, equity, inclusion, justice and antiracism educational interventions as well as stakeholder-engaged community-focused studies on HIV, Black women's health, and youth identity. As a member of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR), she is the principal investigator on Two in One: HIV and COVID Screening & Testing Model that allows her to lead a national research-based educational intervention for primary care practitioners to routinize screenings for HIV, PrEP/PEP, and the COVID vaccine. This research will lead to a set of policy recommendations for overall practice-based changes for all patients and culturally responsive messaging for racial, ethnic, sexual and gender minoritized patients. She is also skilled in the application of participatory action research methods.

We would like to acknowledge the significant contributions of Nikhil Kalita, BS and Sadhana Matheswaran for their roles in researching, compiling, and editing content for this 9-part course series.