Sex, Drugs & Science – Details, episodes & analysis

Natalie Brousseau recently earned her PhD in Human Development & Family Sciences from the University of Delaware and will soon begin a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of Connecticut. Natalie, Valerie, and Carly chat about their work on the UDisclose study, which focused on understanding disclosure experiences among people in recovery from opioid use disorders in Delaware. Natalie shares the results of her three dissertation studies, and Valerie and Carly wish Natalie good luck in her next round of science adventures.

This is our last episode of the season. Follow us on instagram @sexdrugsscience to stay up to date on future episodes. 

Sarah Calabrese is an Assistant Professor of clinical psychology at The George Washington University. Her research focuses on sexual health promotion among racial and sexual minorities and other socially marginalized groups. Sarah chats with Valerie about all things PrEP (an HIV prevention medication), including: how many people are (or aren’t) using PrEP, (arguably) conservative guidelines around PrEP recommendations, and provider bias in PrEP prescription that likely leads to inequities in who can access PrEP. Valerie asks Sarah about why it’s important to think about sexual pleasure when we’re studying HIV prevention and sexual health promotion. 

Learn more about Sarah’s work here: https://shel.columbian.gwu.edu/

Dr. Laramie Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Valerie, Carly, and Laramie take a slow walk through Laramie’s early years, including her childhood plans to become a rodeo barrel rider and adversities she faced on her path to college. Laramie shares her experiences working for the Seattle King County HIV Planning Council before graduate school, her dissertation project in the Bronx, and her current intervention work in Tijuana. Laramie and Valerie reflect on the value of qualitative work and some of the participants from whom they’ve learned the most. 

Learn more about Dr. Smith’s work here:  https://profiles.ucsd.edu/laramie.smith

Watch Dr. Smith’s GSBA speech: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KlX0VjuwRxg

Dr. Ingrid Katz is an Associate Director at the Harvard Global Health Institute, Associate Physician in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a research scientist at the Center for Global Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ingrid’s research focuses on the social determinants of health-seeking behavior among people living with HIV in South Africa. Ingrid talks with Valerie and Carly about biking across the country after college to raise awareness about HIV, her interest in the “complexity of the human condition”, the value of interdisciplinary teams, her many work hats (doctor, scientist, teacher), and being part of the first openly gay couple to match at a Harvard-affiliated hospital. 

Read more about Dr. Katz’s work here: https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/team/ingrid-katz/

Follow her on Twitter: @IngridKatzMD

Access recordings from Dr. Katz’s class (Confronting COVID-19: Science, History, Policy) here: https://globalhealth.harvard.edu/domains/pandemics/courses/

Watch Dr. Katz chat with the Time for Kids reporters about COVID-19 here: https://www.timeforkids.com/g56/ask-the-expert-katz/

This week, Valerie and Carly invite the undergrads to talk a little more about why and how we started the podcast. While we're away on break, follow us on instagram @sexdrugsscience or email us with any questions at sexdrugsnscience@gmail.com. As always, subscribe to the podcast to stay up to date with the next season!

Dr. Samuel Friedman is a Research Professor and faculty member at the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also the Senior Theoretician and Associate Director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Theory Core at the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR). In this bonus episode, Sam and Valerie discuss their role in activism as it relates to academia. Sam also talks about his role in drug user activism in the 1990s, specifically a demonstration at the Department of Health and Human Services which involves a 12 foot tall replica of a human backbone. 

Read more about Dr. Friedman's work here: https://med.nyu.edu/faculty/samuel-r-friedman

And here: https://www.nyu.edu/about/news-publications/news/2012/july/nyucn-center-for-drug-use-and-hiv-researchs-drsamuel-friedman-awarded-a-nida-2012-avant-garde-award.html

Dr. Jelani Kerr is an Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences. Jelani and Valerie talk about what getting tenure means for them and doing research in community settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jelani describes how he got interested in HIV research, connects drug policy to the HIV epidemic in African American communities, gives a history lesson on the war on drugs, and describes why police brutality is a systemic problem. Carly and Valerie talk about Breonna Taylor, the #SayHerName campaign, and stereotypes underlying police brutality targeting Black women.

Read more about Jelani’s work here: https://louisville.edu/sphis/directory/jelani-kerr-phd-msph

Dr. Gabriel Culbert is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois Chicago and Dr. Agung Waluyo is the Directorate of Community Engagement & Empowerment at the Universitas Indonesia. Gabe and Agung describe how they met in Jakarta in 2003 and how their research partnership has developed since then. Agung reflects on what it was like to learn about drug use and the HIV epidemic after a sheltered childhood, recalls being warned that he could be sent to jail for doing stigma research focused on Indonesian healthcare providers, and shares how he navigates conversations about politically sensitive research with government officials. Gabe describes the reasons why the HIV epidemic became concentrated in prisons in Indonesia, questions why Indonesia has one of the highest HIV mortality rates despite having the largest universal healthcare system in the world, and envisions an expanded role for nurses in HIV prevention and treatment. Valerie and Carly nominate Gabe and Agung to be poster children for international research partnerships.

Read more about Agung’s work here: http://staff.ui.ac.id/agungwss
Read more about Gabe’s work here: https://nursing.uic.edu/profiles/gabriel-culbert/

Dr. Jasmine Abrams is an international behavioral research scientist, educator, and entrepreneur working toward health equity for women of African ancestry. She is an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, founder of SpiceXperience (a sex-positive woman owned company providing premium erotic education), and co-founder of Research Unlimited (a full service research assistance agency). Jasmine talks to Valerie and Carly about her work on the Strong Black Women Schema, bringing pleasure to sexual health research, drawing energy from being an entrepreneur, and supporting Black academics. 

Read more about Dr. Abrams work here: http://www.drjasmineabrams.com/
Follow her on twitter and Instagram: @DrJasmineAbrams 

Learn more about SpiceXperience here: https://www.spicexperience.com/
Learn more about Research Unlimited here: http://researchunlimited.com/researchers/

Read about her in Nature: https://www.nature.com/articles/d41586-020-01705-x 

Dr. Seth Kalichman is Professor of Social Psychology and Dr. Lisa Eaton is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Seth is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal AIDS & Behavior and Lisa is an Associate Editor. Seth and Lisa tell the stories of how they became interested in HIV research, share best practices for collecting data at Pride, and think about how to apply lessons learned from HIV research to COVID-19. Seth issues a public apology to Anthony Fauci, and Valerie learns that she’s technically living in the South.

Read more about Seth's work here: https://chip.uconn.edu/person/seth-kalichman-phd/
Read more about Lisa's work here: https://hdfs.uconn.edu/person/lisa-eaton/

Read Lisa and Seth's paper on applying what we know about HIV to COVID here: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/32333185/