Faculty & Staff

 

 

 

B.R. Simon Rosser, PhD, MPH, LP

Professor and Director, HIV/STI Intervention and Prevention Studies (HIPS) Program, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health,
University of Minnesota School of Public Health

B. R. Simon Rosser, PhD, MPH, LP, is professor and director of the HIV/STI Intervention and Prevention Studies (HIPS) Program, in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health, School of Public Health at the University of Minnesota.  He has advanced degrees in psychology, epidemiology, and behavioral medicine, with postdoctoral training in clinical/research sexology. Born and raised in New Zealand, he helped found the New Zealand AIDS Foundation (1983), then completed the first PhD in HIV prevention in the Southern Hemisphere at the Flinders University of South Australia. Simon moved to University of Minnesota in 1990. He is an award-winning author of 5 books and numerous scientific articles, serves as a reviewer for NIH on the Behavioral and Social Consequences of HIV/AIDS, and is best known for his research in the areas of HIV prevention, male homosexuality, homophobia, sexual health, Internet sex, and structural level interventions. Currently he is principal investigator on three NIH-funded studies testing highly interactive Internet based interventions for Men who use the Internet to seek Sex with Men, examining the long-term impacts of HIV prevention interventions for persons living with HIV, and structural level interventions to lower alcohol-related HIV risk; a CDC-formative study designing online interventions for persons living with HIV; and a state-funded study to improve the sexual health and reduce HIV risk behavior among MSM.

 

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Walter Bockting, PhD

Associate Professor, Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School  

Dr. Bockting received his doctoral degree in psychology from the Vrije Universiteit, Amsterdam, The Netherlands (drs. in 1988 and PhD in 1998). Currently, he is a licensed psychologist, associate professor, and coordinator of transgender health services at the Program in Human Sexuality. He is also on the graduate faculty of Feminist Studies and a co-founder of the University’s Center for CAH and Disorders of Sex Development. His research interests include gender identity development, transgender health, sexuality and the Internet, and HIV prevention, and his work has been supported by grants from the National Institutes of Health, the American Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Minnesota Department of Health.

 

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Sonya S. Brady, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Brady received her doctorate in Clinical Psychology and Biological/Health Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, completing a postdoctoral fellowship in Health Psychology in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Brady’s research predominantly centers on adolescent risk-taking, specifically including: health risk behavior during adolescence and young adulthood; developmental influences on risk taking; socioeconomic and ethnic disparities in consequences of risk taking; mechanisms linking stressful life circumstances to health risk behavior and factors promoting resiliency; promotion of health protective behavior; public policies affecting adolescent health.

 

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Dale Carpenter, JD

Earl R. Larson Professor of Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law, University of Minnesota Law School

Professor Dale Carpenter teaches and writes in the areas of constitutional law, the First Amendment, sexual orientation and the law, and commercial law. In 2007, he was appointed to the Earl R. Larson Chair in Civil Rights and Civil Liberties Law. He was the Julius E. Davis Professor of Law for 2006-07 and the Vance K. Opperman Research Scholar for 2003-04. Professor Carpenter was chosen the Stanley V. Kinyon Teacher of the Year for 2003-04 and 2005-06 and was the Tenured Teacher of the Year for 2006-07. Since 2004, he has served as an editor of Constitutional Commentary. Professor Carpenter received his BA degree in history, magna cum laude, from Yale College in 1989. He received his JD, with honors, from the University of Chicago Law School in 1992. At the University of Chicago he was Editor-in-Chief of the University of Chicago Law Review. He received both the D. Francis Bustin Prize for excellence in legal scholarship and the John M. Olin Foundation Scholarship for Law & Economics.

 

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Eli Coleman, PhD

Professor, Director of Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School 

Dr. Coleman is professor and director of the Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School in Minneapolis. He is the author of numerous articles and books on compulsive sexual behavior, sexual offenders, sexual orientation, gender dysphoria, chemical dependency, family intimacy, and the psychological and pharmacological treatment of a variety of sexual dysfunctions and disorders. Professor Coleman is the founding editor of the International Journal of Transgenderism and is the founding and current editor of the International Journal of Sexual Health. He is a past president of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality, the World Professional Association for Transgender Health (formerly the Harry Benjamin International Gender Dysphoria Association), and the World Association for Sexual Health. He is the current president of the International Academy for Sex Research. He has been a frequent technical consultant on sexual health issues to the World Health Organization (WHO) and the Pan American Health Organization (the regional office of WHO). He has been the recipient of numerous awards including the US Surgeon General's Exemplary Service Award for his role as senior scientist on Surgeon General's Call to Action to Promote Sexual Health and Responsible Sexual Behavior, released in 2001. He was given the Distinguished Scientific Achievement Award from the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality and the Alfred E. Kinsey Award by the Midcontinent Region of the Society for the Scientific Study of Sexuality in 2001. In 2007 he was awarded the Gold Medal for his lifetime contributions to the field of sexual health by the World Association for Sexual Health and was appointed the first endowed Chair in Sexual Health at the University of Minnesota Medical School.

 

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Marla Eisenberg, ScD, MPH

Assistant Professor, Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine, Department of Pediatrics, University of Minnesota Medical School

Dr. Eisenberg is an assistant professor in Pediatrics in the Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine. She received her baccalaureate degree from the University of Wisconsin and her Master of Public Health from the University of Minnesota, School of Public Health. Dr. Eisenberg earned her Doctor of Science degree from Harvard University School of Public Health and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in Adolescent Health at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Eisenberg teaches research methodology seminars in the interdisciplinary fellowship programs in the Division and provides individual mentoring for fellows on their research projects. She currently conducts adolescent health research with the Healthy Youth Development Prevention Research Center, and her research focus is social influences on health behaviors of adolescents.

 

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Eileen Harwood, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Harwood is an assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health. She received her doctorate in Sociology from the University of Georgia, and her Master of Education in Higher Education Administration, Counseling and Research from the University of Vermont, and has garnered specialties in survey research, qualitative research methods, and health program and policy evaluation. Dr. Eileen Harwood holds multiple directorship positions at the University of Minnesota, including The Powell Center of Excellence in Women’s Health (Medical School), Data and Statistical Services Core (Transdisciplinary Research on Energetics and Cancer (TREC) Center), Health Survey Research Center Core (University of Minnesota Cancer Center), and Health Survey Research Center (School of Public Health). Dr. Harwood is also responsible for teaching Public Health Program Evaluation for Public Health Practice.

 

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Wendy Hellerstedt, PhD, MPH

Associate Professor, Chair of the Maternal and Child Health Program, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Wendy Hellerstedt is an associate professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health and currently serves as the Maternal and Child Health graduate program major chair. Dr. Hellerstedt’s research foci are centered on issues pertaining to adolescent STI sexual risk, reproductive health, and women’s health issues. She received both her MPH and PhD (Epidemiology) from the University of Minnesota.  

 

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Keith J. Horvath, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Keith Horvath is an assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health where he specializes in HIV risk assessment and prevention, Internet-based interventions for chronic disease, online survey design, and sexual minority health issues, in addition to teaching PubH 3010: Public Health Approaches to HIV/AIDS. He received his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Wyoming, and has been a postdoctoral fellow/associate in both the Program in Human Sexuality and the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health here at the University of Minnesota prior to joining its faculty. Dr. Horvath is currently Principal Investigator of a CDC-funded initiative to conduct formative Internet-based research to improve health and reduce HIV transmission among HIV-positive persons.    

 

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Rhonda Jones-Webb, DrPH

Associate Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Rhonda Jones-Webb is an associate professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the University of Minnesota where she teaches courses related to social inequalities in health, tobacco and alcohol prevention and control, and social/behavioral science. Dr. Jones-Webb specializes in minority health issues and alcohol-related public health issues, including alcohol-related HIV/STI risk. In addition to HIPS program membership, Jones-Webb is a member of the Alcohol Epidemiology Program (Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota) and the University of Minnesota Cancer Center.

 

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Joseph Konstan, PhD

Professor and Associate Head, Department of Computer Science and Engineering, University of Minnesota

Professor Konstan specializes in human-computer interaction. He currently holds six United States Patents and has published more than 70 peer-reviewed papers and articles. He also co-authored a book with Prof. John Riedl. Dr. Konstan was recently named to the inaugural class of ACM Distinguished Scientists (in 2006), and has also served as an IEEE Distinguished Visitor and an ACM Distinguished Lecturer among other honors.  He is a successful researcher who has led or participated in 20 federally-funded grants, including an NSF CAREER Grant Awards and an NSF ITR award (he is Principal Investigator of six NSF grants). He and his students have been awarded numerous awards for research papers. He is also a dedicated and accomplished teacher who created the department's curriculum in human-computer interaction. He also introduced laboratory-based instruction to our lower-division undergraduate courses and created and teaches an overview course on computer science for non-engineers. Prof. Konstan is interested in a wide range of topics under the general category of human-computer interaction. His current work is mostly concerned with three areas:

• Recommender Systems -- Systems that provide personal recommendations based on a community of users' experiences.
• Online Community -- Studying why people choose to contribute to online communities and how to design communities to better foster participation of their members. 
• Computer Systems for HIV Prevention -- Prof. Konstan has been working for over five years with HIV prevention researchers to assess the differential risks undertaken by men seeking sex with other men through online venues.

 

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Alan R. Lifson, MD, MPH

Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Lifson is currently Principal Investigator on two federally-funded projects:  A data analysis center that provides statistical and epidemiologic expertise necessary for the design, implementation, analysis, and publication of research studies in the field of HIV and other infectious disease research, and the Midwest AIDS Training and Education Center (MATEC), which provides training and state-of-the-art information to health professionals in order to enhance their ability to effectively prevent and treat HIV infection. Dr. Lifson completed his Doctor of Medicine from the University of California, San Francisco and a Master of Public Health in Epidemiology from the University of California, Berkeley. His research interests include HIV/AIDS, international health, and infectious diseases, and he currently teaches PubH 6385: Epidemiology and Control of Infectious Diseases in the Division of Epidemiology and Community Health.

 

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J. Michael Oakes, PhD

McKnight Presidential Fellow, Associate Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. J. Michael Oakes is an associate professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health, where he teaches courses pertinent to epidemiological methods, research design and methodology, and social epidemiology. Dr. Oakes’s principal research interests are centered on quantitative/research methods, social epidemiology, and research ethics, and he serves the HIPS program as a chief statistician and methodologist.  

 

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Gary Remafedi, MD, MPH

Professor of Pediatrics, Director, Youth & AIDS Projects, Division of Adolescent Health and Medicine, University of Minnesota Medical School

Gary Remafedi, MD, MPH, is the Director of the Youth and AIDS Projects and a Professor of Pediatrics at the University of Minnesota.  Dr. Remafedi received his baccalaureate degree from Yale University and medical degree from the University of Illinois. He completed his pediatric residency training at Cook County Hospital, Chicago, and a master’s degree in Public Health and fellowship in Adolescent Medicine at the University of Minnesota. Dr. Remafedi is a Fellow of the American Academy of Pediatrics and a member of the editorial review boards of the Journal of the American Medical Association, American Journal of Public Health, Pediatrics, and other distinguished scientific publications.  He has published and lectured widely on the topics of adolescent sexuality, HIV/AIDS, and other sexually transmitted diseases.  His regular professional activities include caring for pediatric and adolescent patients, research in adolescent medicine, and teaching physicians and graduate students at the University of Minnesota.

 

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Michael Ross, PhD

Professor, Division of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences, University of Texas School of Public Health

Dr. Ross is a professor in the Division of Health Promotion & Behavioral Sciences at the University of Texas School of Public Health. With approximately 20 books and 400 published articles on aspects of homosexuality, Dr. Ross is among the world’s preeminent researchers on men who have sex with men and HIV/STIs. A pioneer in both the impact of law on homosexual persons and Internet sex research, he has an extensive collaborative role with Dr. Rosser, the HIPS program director, serving as a consultant on numerous research projects in the HIPS program. Dr. Ross’s research specialty areas include: STI, HIV/AIDS, drug abuse, community-level and correctional STD/HIV prevention, cross-cultural aspects of public health, and Internet sexuality.

 

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Darin Erickson, PhD

Assistant Professor, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Darin Erickson, assistant professor in the Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, received his PhD in Social Psychology from the University of Missouri. His primary research interests are in alcohol prevention and etiology, in addition to statistical methods, particularly latent variable analysis and longitudinal, time series analyses. Dr. Erickson is a lead methodologist within the HIPS program.

 

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William (Bill) West, PhD

Department of Writing Studies, University of Minnesota

Dr. West is a lecturer in the Department of Writing Studies at the University of Minnesota specializing in scientific and technical communication. His recent focus is on learning in e-environments, e-communication in medical and homeland security crises, and differences in learning between online and offline classroom environments.

 

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Derek Smolenski, PhD

Research Associate, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Smolenski received his MPH (Disease Control) and PhD (Epidemiology) from the University of Texas School of Public Health. His dissertation focused on refining the measurement of sexual health constructs salient to MSM sexual health such as internalized homonegativity. Dr. Smolenski’s research interests include: MSM sexual health, HIV/AIDS prevention and control, and internet sexuality.   

 

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Michael Wilkerson, PhD

Research Associate, Division of Epidemiology & Community Health, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Dr. Michael Wilkerson holds a PhD in adult, professional, and community education from Texas State University-San Marcos and is a Certified Health Education Specialist.  His dissertation explored how collegiate gay and bisexual men’s changing sociosexual identity may have contributed to sexual risk taking.  Currently, Dr. Wilkerson is a postdoctoral associate at the University of Minnesota School of Public Health in HIV/STI Intervention and Prevention Studies.  His current research includes the identification of gaps in LGBT healthcare and the effect of social constructions on men who have sex with men’s sexual risk-taking.

 

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HIPS-Affiliated Faculty

Michael Miner, PhD
Associate Professor , Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School 

Jamie Feldman, PhD
Associate Professor, Program in Human Sexuality, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School 

Bean Robinson, PhD
Associate Professor  and Associate Director, Program in Human Sexuality
Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School 

Seth Welles, PhD, ScD
Associate Professor, Department of Epidemiology & Biostatistics, Drexel University School of Public Health

Laura Gurak, PhD
Professor and Chair, Department of Writing Studies, University of Minnesota

Michael Allen, PhD
CEO, Allen Interactions, INC

 

Other University of Minnesota faculty working on HIV-related projects include:

Patrick Keenan, PhD
Assistant Professor, Department of Family Medicine and Community Health, University of Minnesota Medical School 

Timothy Schacker, MD
Infectious Disease Specialist, Director, Infectious Disease Clinic, University of Minnesota Medical School

James D. Neaton, PhD
Professor, Department of Biostatistics, University of Minnesota School of Public Health

Henry H. Balfour, Jr., MD
Professor, Medical Director, Clinical Virology Laboratory, Laboratory Medicine and Pathology, University of Minnesota Medical School

Linda H. Bearinger, PhD, MS, RN, FAAN
Professor, Director, Center for Adolescent Nursing, School of Nursing, University of Minnesota

 

 

Questions? Contact Gunna Kilian, HIPS Program Manager