SBSRC Team

The primary goal of the UNC CFAR Social and Behavioral Science Research Core is to stimulate and promote new research and support on-going collaborative HIV-related social and behavioral research at UNC and related institutions. For more information about the Core please visit the UNC CFAR website.

Core Personnel

Core Director
Carol E. Golin, M.D.

Dr. Golin is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Health Behavior and Health Education in the UNC School of Public Health and in the Division of General Medicine and Epidemiology in UNC Department of Medicine. Dr. Golin is an experienced health services and behavioral researcher. She has been Principal Investigator and co-investigator of numerous federally funded studies of antiretroviral adherence and HIV prevention, including trials of the SAFETALK, STAR and PACT interventions as well as of the ADEPT cohort and the HIV Costs and Services Utilization Study (HCSUS). Dr. Golin has expertise in developing theory-based health behavior interventions, including motivational interviewing and in conducting formative research to inform behavioral intervention development. She has been actively involved in developing and testing new ways to measure antiretroviral therapy (ART) adherence.

Core Manager
Michele Demers, M.P.H.

Ms. Demers is the UNC CFAR Social and Behavioral Science Research Core Manager where she oversees the day-to-day functioning of the Core. In particular, she focuses on HIV prevention training curricula, survey design, assisting with grant applications and IRB submissions. Ms. Demers has developed curricula for HIV prevention and behavior change trainings for health care providers, and is particularly interested in using adult education strategies to teach motivational enhancement techniques for HIV prevention. Her research interests include HIV prevention among Spanish-speaking migrant populations, the impact of social and sexual network behaviors on HIV prevention and the effects of HIV-related stigma.

Core Consultant and Staff
Ronald P. Strauss, D.M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Strauss is Dental Friends Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Dental Ecology in the UNC School of Dentistry and Professor in the Department of Social Medicine in the UNC School of Medicine. Dr. Strauss is a trained ethnographer/sociologist and has utilized qualitative and survey research methods in numerous projects. He assists CFAR investigators who are conducting social/behavioral research in the community or enrolling potential subjects in social science research studies. Dr. Strauss also provides linkage to communities and community agencies and heads the Community Outreach and Education Program (CODE) of the CFAR. Currently he is the convener of a number of Community Advisory Boards for HIV/AIDS studies and other research projects. Much of his research has related to stigma; he is also a dentist, working on starting a new School of Dentistry in Malawi. He actively works with investigators in communicating research results back to the community and in improving the enrollment and retention of minority subjects.

Scales Development Expert
Robert DeVellis, Ph.D.

Dr. DeVellis is a social psychologist whose general interests center on how social variables and individual differences influence health behavior and adaptation to illness. Current research interests include the role of interpersonal processes in adaptation to chronic illness and mechanisms underlying social support. He is also interested in the development and validation of scales to measure health- related variables.

Core Staff and CHAI Unit Consultant and Liaison
Carol Carr, M.S.

The Communication for Health Applications and Interventions (CHAI) Core specializes in intervention research using the latest technology in computer and multimedia applications, such as web site design and support. CHAI offers consulting and services in intervention program development as well as computer-based web and multimedia design and development including usability testing. Ms. Carr serves as CHAI’s administrative director. She has extensive experience facilitating efficient and effective collaboration between faculty investigators and CHAI staff members. She is the point person for faculty needing consultation and services from CHAI.

Epidemiologist
Irene A Doherty, PhD

Dr. Doherty is a Research Assistant Professor in the School of Medicine. Her research focuses broadly on social determinants of HIV and sexually transmitted infections (STI) among marginalized populations, and the effect of social and sexual networks on STI transmission, in particular. Dr. Doherty has a diversity of epidemiologic and statistical analysis expertise surrounding sexual partnership patterns and individual predictors of membership in high risk networks. She also developed a discrete mathematical model that simultaneously varied sexual mixing patterns and the level of concurrent partnerships to investigate their joint effects on the spread of a persistent viral STI. She has expertise in designing sexual network databases with built-in quality control mechanisms to compile sociometric networks. Dr. Doherty has conducted preliminary network analysis of a two-year longitudinal study to investigate the effects of social and sexual networks on the occurrence of STIs and unintended pregnancy among Latino adolescents in San Francisco’s Mission District.She has also examined the sexual networks for an outbreak of HIV infection among predominately young (ages 18-30) African American men in North Carolina

Core Staff
Kelly Green, M.P.H., M.A.

Ms. Green has extensive experience with survey design, assisting with grant applications, IRB submissions, and ACASI programming.

Core Staff
Niasha Brown, M.A.

Niasha A. Brown, MA is a proud native of North Carolina with an academic background in Clinical Psychology. She has worked on research that involves health promotion and behavior change of at-risk or post risk populations (drug abuse, adolescents, HIV/AIDS, 9/11 Tragedy, and more). Currently she works at UNC-Chapel Hill’s School of Nursing as Project Manager and Data Manager of the Sister to Sister Positive HOPE Study (funded by CDC, PI: Fogel, C.I.) to serve women who are living with HIV utilizing an intervention aimed to reduce transmission risk of STI's and HIV. She has also utilized her skills as a mental health professional serving as a Counselor on Safe Talk (funded by NIMH, PI; Golin, C.E.). In her role with Safe Talk she delivered four sessions of Motivational Interviewing risk reduction counseling for people living with HIV. As an active contributor to the CFAR Social Behavioral Core, Ms. Brown is involved in a variety of community based professional trainings amongst health care providers throughout North Carolina and Internationally on HIV education, prevention, and risk reduction. Ms. Brown provides community support to community based agencies by providing community outreach, education, and counseling following HIV testing. She has recently partnered with the American Psychological Association (APA) as a Behavioral Social Science Volunteer to contribute to capacity building for local and regional health departments and agencies who are serving populations affected by HIV. Niasha also has experience working with research grants that aim to prevent HIV transmission amongst incarcerated women in North Carolina. Her consistent approach to health problems comes from a bio-psycho-social framework, which informs her goal of healthcare in North Carolina to address the need for more qualified mental health care professionals to serve populations in partnership with medical care providers to address patients’ mental health issues that impact their physical health and social health concerns.

Graduate Research Assistant
Kate Thanel

Kate Thanel is a Graduate Research Assistant for the Social and Behavioral Science Research Core. This position focuses primarily on the organization of topical workgroups and management of the Social and Behavioral Instrument (SABI) database. Currently a MPH student in the department of Health Behavior and Health Education (HBHE), Kate has worked in HIV prevention and social support for people living with HIV/AIDS in France, on qualitative research to inform HIV prevention efforts among male sex workers in the Dominican Republic and currently on sexual health with Latino youth in North Carolina. Research interests include the relationship between socio-economic and environmental factors and HIV risk, understanding sexuality across cultures, community participation in research and connecting research and practice.