Fred Ssewamala, the William E. Gordon Distinguished Professor and Founding Director of the International Center for Child Health and Development (ICHAD) at the Brown School, along with his colleagues Mary McKay, Vice Provost for Interdisciplinary Initiatives at the Provost Office, and Patricia Cavazos-Rehg, Professor of Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at Washington University in St. Louis, have been awarded the Here & Next Tier 3 University-Wide Research Initiative seed grant for a transdisciplinary center focused on HIV and its associated mental health and structural comorbidities in the global context. The new transdisciplinary center, named “Improving Mental Health, Poverty, and AIDS Research and Training in Global ContexTs” (IMPACT) Global Center” (2024-2027) will be launched in July.

Cavazos-Rehg

 While there are centers and faculty collaborations across campuses addressing these complex public health challenges, most are siloed, … We believe that IMPACT Global Center will address this gap and we look forward to collaborating with all faculty interested in conducting research on these issues.

Ssewamala

The center will serve as a resource connecting a transdisciplinary network of investigators with the goal of bringing together new and experienced researchers to test and determine the most cost-effective, promising and scalable interventions as well as advance HIV-focused scientific methods to ultimately reduce new infections and end the HIV epidemic.