Marguerita Lightfoot, PhD (Emeritus)

Biography

Marguerita Lightfoot, PhD is Professor of Medicine at the UCSF School of Medicine, Chief for the Division of Prevention Science, and Director of the Center for Prevention Studies (CAPS) and UCSF Prevention Research Center (PRC). She has an established research career conducting community-involved research, receiving awards for my community partnership efforts. She has considerable experience designing and implementing preventive interventions and has developed culturally competent, efficacious HIV interventions for delinquent adolescents, runaway/homeless youth, youth living with HIV, and young MSM, including developing interventions for delivery via technology (e.g., computers, websites, mobile phone, video games). In particular, she developed an efficacious computer-based intervention to reduce the sexual risk behaviors of delinquent youth (published in the American Journal of Public Health), successfully adapted an intervention for youth living with HIV to youth in Uganda (published in Prevention Science), and developed a computer-based intervention implemented in medical settings to reduce the HIV transmission risk behavior of adults living with HIV (published in JAIDS). She is particularly interested in developing cost-effective interventions that are easily translatable with utility in community settings and utilizes new technologies to engage disenfranchised individuals in health promotion activities. She has also conducted psychotherapy with predominately African American and Latino adolescents, adults, and families infected and/or affected by HIV.