I am a health services researcher and Associate Professor in the Department of Medicine and Division of Infectious Diseases at the University of Alabama at Birmingham (UAB). My clinical care and research address the intersection of addiction and infectious diseases in the Deep South (a-d). As a health services researcher, I study ways to integrate addiction and infectious diseases services into low barrier touch points for rural, Southern groups. In addition to being the Director of the Outpatient-based Opioid Treatment Clinic at the UAB 1917 HIV clinic, I am the Principal Investigator of an implementation study targeting substance use and mental health comorbidities in Alabamians with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) using patient reported outcomes and telemedicine (R01 MH124633-01) and a community-based project using Prevention Navigation to link African American youth to substance use prevention and HIV services (1H79SP082270-01). I also study ways to link hospitalized patients with injection-related infections to comprehensive infection treatment and HIV prevention (P30 AI027767 Supplement).

I am an Emerging Leader in Health and Medicine, one of ten awardees selected by the National Academy of Medicine (2022 - 2025). I am on the Steering Committee for the Inter-CFAR Substance Use Research Community (I-SURC) and an invited member of the Infectious Diseases Society of America/HIV Medical Association (IDSA/HIVMA) Opioid Working Group. I am an investigator with the Research and Informatics Services Center (RISC) and an Associate Scientist with the Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and the Center for Clinic and Translational Science (CCTS) at the University of Alabama, Birmingham.

I am the Chair of the Infectious Diseases Society Grants for Emerging Investigators program (2021-2023) and a member of the UAB Department of Medicine Research Development Group. I lead the UAB Center for Outcomes and Effectiveness Research Monthly Breakfast, a forum for early career investigators to get feedback on grant writing, study design, and research activities. I have successfully mentored a number of medical students, residents, fellows, doctoral candidates and, a post-doctoral trainee leading to 7 mentee first author manuscripts. My mentees have received an NIH T32 (Gagnon, K), the UAB School of Medicine Koopman Award (Huntsicker, J and Radney, J), the UAB CCTS TL1 (Joe, W), and IDSA/HIVMA Summer Research Scholarships (Dodson, K, Rogers, A., and Jeziorski, M). Notably, most of my mentees are women. I will provide mentorship to T32 trainees in epidemiology of infectious consequences of addiction and implementation science and outcomes tracks in the area of substance use, harm reduction, infectious diseases prevention and treatment, and telehealth in rural and poor communities, including developing countries.