Jessica Elise Justman, MD

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As an infectious disease specialist and epidemiologist, Dr. Jessica Justman has worked for over two decades to advance HIV prevention, care, and treatment and, more recently, to pioneer a precision approach to understanding the global HIV epidemic. As a Professor of Medicine in Epidemiology, Dr. Justman's research interests focus on HIV epidemiology and HIV prevention studies. For example, she spearheaded the CDC-funded Population-based HIV Impact Assessment (PHIA) Project. Since 2014, the PHIA Project's nationally representative surveys have measured access to care and treatment and, by using novel HIV recency assays, estimated HIV incidence in 15 African and Caribbean countries. Results from the PHIA surveys have transformed global HIV programming by highlighting the need for more effective and targeted HIV testing approaches. Dr. Justman is also principal investigator of the TRACE initiative, a technical assistance program that helps ministries of health use HIV recency testing to strengthen the precision of HIV infection surveillance systems and guide HIV prevention programs. Dr. Justman's HIV prevention research began over 20 years ago when she was the site leader for ICAP's Bronx Prevention Center Clinical Research Site. The Bronx site, along with the Harlem Prevention Center and the Eswatini Prevention Center, is part of the NIH-funded ICAP at Columbia Clinical Trials Unit, for which Dr. Justman serves as co-principal investigator. With the advent of the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, Dr. Justman has applied lessons from HIV programs and research to a wide range of COVID-19 activities, including COVID-19 surveys, vaccine trials, early treatment of COVID for close contacts, and treatment trials of monoclonal therapeutics. She serves as ICAP's senior technical director and oversees the development and strengthening of ICAP's clinical, laboratory, strategic information and survey activities across a range of global projects.