Marguerita Lightfoot
Marguerita Lightfoot, PhD, has been named the director of the Technology and Information Exchange Core (TIE) at UCSF's Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS).
She joins UCSF from UCLA, where she was co-director of the Intervention Core in the Center for HIV Identification, Prevention and Treatment Services (CHIPTS) in the Department of Psychiatry.
"Dr. Lightfoot, a dynamic researcher who has been reshaping proven HIV prevention interventions to make them more accessible, portable and interesting to adolescents, is ideally suited at this point in the epidemic to lead CAPS TIE Core, which applies HIV prevention research to practice and helps integrate community experience into HIV prevention science," said Stephen F. Morin, PhD, director of CAPS and UCSF professor of medicine.
Lightfoot's research has included HIV prevention work in the juvenile justice system and with runaway and homeless youths in Los Angeles. One particular focus of her research with adolescents has been to adapt and utilize interactive and engaging delivery of HIV preventive activities on computers.
"CAPS TIE Core is a recognized innovator, and together we can build the adolescent research portfolio and develop a real two-way street with youth about HIV," said Lightfoot. "We need to get the best interventions working in the community, but also hear back from young people about what is and is not working and about what else is needed. This is an exciting opportunity for me to work with CAPS' extraordinary researchers to reduce HIV among at-risk adolescents in San Francisco, California, and elsewhere."
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A notable, ongoing research project for Lightfoot has been adapting interventions to reduce HIV-related risk among urban street youths and youths living with HIV in Uganda.
"We anticipate significant synergy emerging between CAPS' existing leadership in developing prevention programs for HIV-positive individuals and Dr. Lightfoot's cutting-edge research responding to the challenges of reducing HIV risk among HIV-positive youth in sub-Saharan Africa," said Morin.
Established in 1986 in the early days of the HIV/AIDS epidemic, UCSF's
Center for AIDS Prevention Studies conducts domestic and international research to prevent the acquisition of HIV and to optimize health outcomes among HIV-infected individuals.
CAPS is a component of the
AIDS Research Institute (ARI) at UCSF. UCSF ARI houses hundreds of scientists and dozens of programs throughout UCSF and affiliated labs and institutions, making ARI one of the largest AIDS research entities in the world.
