LUCH TEAM
Lab Head
Dr. Victoria Frye is an Associate Medical Professor in the Department of Community Health and Social Medicine. She arrived at the CUNY School of Medicine/Sophie Davis Program in Biomedical Education in late 2015, after serving as the Head of the Laboratory of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the New York Blood Center and as an Assistant Professor of Clinical Sociomedical Sciences at Columbia University’s Mailman School of Public. Dr. Frye’s research combines epidemiological and social science theories and methods to study the distribution, determinants and health consequences of intimate partner and sexual violence and HIV/AIDS. Additionally, she designs and tests multi-level and multi-component interventions to prevent HIV and violence. Dr. Frye is currently the PI of two NIH-funded studies. The first (R21/AI-122996) assesses barriers to and facilitators of uptake of non-occupational post-exposure HIV prophylaxis (“PEP”) use among Black and Latino men who have sex with men (MSM) and transgender women living in upper Manhattan and the Bronx; the goal of the study is to inform the development and evaluation of a social and print media campaign to raise drive demand for PEP. The second, a randomized, controlled clinical trial (R01/DA-038108), assesses the impact of a behavioral intervention on uptake of consistent HIV self-testing among young, Black MSM and transgender women. Dr. Frye recently completed work on a NIMH-funded study (R21/MH-102182-01) to design and test a community-level anti-HIV stigma and homophobia intervention, Project CHHANGE (“Challenge HIV Stigma and Gain Empowerment”). She is a co-investigator on three additional NIH-funded studies, including another RCT on HIV testing among MSM (1R01/HD-078595-01), an observational mixed methods study examining neighborhoods influence on HIV among MSM (R56/MH-110176), and an RCT of an intervention to increase blood donation among young first-time donors (1R01/HL-127766). In 2006, Dr. Frye received a mentored career development award from NIDA (K01 DA-020774) and her research has been published in JAMA, American Journal of Public Health, Social Science and Medicine, JAIDS, AIDS and Behavior, AIDS Care, Violence against Women, Journal of Community Psychology, Journal of Interpersonal Violence, and the Journal of Urban Health, where she serves as an Associate Editor. In 2016, she was appointed by the United States Secretary of Health and Human Services, under President Obama, to serve on the Board of Scientific Counselors for the National Center for Injury Prevention and Control of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
Jeremy Fagan, PhD is a Research Associate who splits his time between the City College of NY and The Oval Center at Montefiore. As part of LUCH, he is working on the NIH-funded R21 grant dedicated to increasing the knowledge, uptake and adherence of PostExposure Prophylaxis among Black MSM and Transwomen. He is especially interested in the social determinants of health and how social media and digital health technology can be a powerful tool in this arena.
LUCH ALUMNS
Martina Delle Donne, Masters’ Degree in Clinical Psychology in Italy, contributes to Dr. Frye’s research on sexual violence at CCNY. She coordinated “Men’s Sexual Experiences” study, funded by the Crime Victim Treatment Center, in order to understand how cisgender and transgender men (included gay self-identified) conceptualize sexual violence experiences and what factors constitute a barrier to service-seeking behavior. She is currently coordinating “Commuter Campus Students’ Sexual Experiences” study, to understand how non-residential students with diverse gender identity and sexual orientation relate to sexual violence, bystander behavior and sexual violence prevention. She also interns at the “New York City Alliance Against Sexual Assault” helping in the development of a sexual violence prevention media campaign. She is interested in the intersection between psycho-social factors and both sexuality and gender identity.
