Monthly Seminar Series

Gregorio (Greg) Millett is a Vice President at amfAR, the Foundation for AIDS Research, and the Director of amfAR’s D.C.-based Public Policy Office. From 2000 through 2009, Mr. Millett served as a CDC Senior Scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP), and subsequently as a Senior Policy Advisor in President Obama’s White House Office of National AIDS Policy from 2009 through 2013 where he helped author and implement the National HIV/AIDS Strategy. Mr. Millett is a nationally recognized expert in HIV racial disparities and has first author publications in the Lancet, JAMA, AIDS, AJPH, and JAIDS, and over 6,000 citations in the scientific literature. Mr. Millett has also published several papers on COVID-19 racial/ ethnic disparities, spoken at the National Academy of Sciences on the similarities between the COVID-19 and HIV pandemics, and is a scientific advisor for NIH’s COVID-19 Vaccine Trials Network. In addition, Mr Millett’s team has created a COVID-19 dashboard tracking COVID-19 disparities aby race cross US counties (https://ehe.amfar.org/inequity/ ). Data from the dashboard have been highlighted by several congressional offices and included in Capitol Hill hearings on the need for timely COVID-19 data by race/ethnicity.

Orlando O. Harris, PhD, RN, FNP, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Nursing in the Department of Community Health Systems, School of Nursing, and an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Prevention Science in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His research focuses on the exploration of risk and protective factors in sexual and gender diverse communities of color. He also focuses on understanding the relationships between intersectional stigma, violence, mental health, HIV, and other health-related behavior outcomes. Dr. Harris leverages multi-methods data, using community-based participatory research methods, to inform culturally relevant interventions that improves the lives of vulnerable sexual and gender diverse communities. His research aims to reduce disparities in health within these communities by developing programs that improve self-efficacy and promote resilience. Dr. Harris was appointed as an expert panelist to the COVID-19 Prevention Network (CoVPN), a panel funded by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), to review all COVID-19 related vaccine trials. Most recently, his research has shifted to explore factors related to COVID-19 vaccination uptake among Black/African American communities.