Spotlight - Jane Simoni
The Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core is delighted to announce that Dr. Jane Simoni will be joining the SPRC as Core Coordinator for Behavioral Research. Dr. Simoni is a clinical health psychologist and professor in the Department of Psychology at the University of Washington. She brings her expertise in behavioral research to the position, including a focus on HIV medication adherence as well as an interest in health disparities and health promotion among racial/ethnic minorities, women, and gay and lesbian populations. Dr. Simoni received her PhD in Psychology from the University of California, Los Angeles, in 1993. Her dissertation focused on developing school-based mutual support groups for Latino parents in Los Angeles. Dr. Simoni’s interest in HIV/AIDS-related research started during a post-doctoral position at the University of Southern California, where she worked with a cohort of HIV+ Latino men and women. In particular, Dr. Simoni was interested in how cultural variables affected issues such as disclosure and access to social support. As an Assistant Professor at Yeshiva University, at the Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York, Dr. Simoni continued her work on social support among people living with HIV/AIDS. She developed and evaluated a peer support system in the Bronx that focused on the influence of social support and quality of life indicators on adherence to antiretroviral treatment regimens. Dr. Simoni came to the University of Washington in 2001 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology, where she has continued to conduct HIV/AIDS research at both the local and the international scale. At the local level, she recently completed a large research project with the Madison Clinic at Harborview Medical Center that evaluated the effectiveness of peer support and two-way pager messaging to enhance antiretroviral medication adherence. 
At the international level, Dr. Simoni is involved with an antiretroviral adherence project in Beijing, China that is focused on developing culturally sensitive, clinically feasible, and generalizable adherence interventions. Currently, Dr. Simoni is developing a new research project on depression and adherence to HIV treatment regimens along the US-Mexico border (El Paso, TX and Ciudad Juárez, Mexico). The project would include a focus on capacity building and developing an intervention that would be both culturally appropriate and easy to replicate. This coming year she will be spending her sabbatical at the University of Auckland, NZ’s Nga Pae o te Maramatanga, The National Institute of Research Excellence for Maori Development and Advancement. As Core Coordinator for Behavioral Research, Dr. Simoni will strengthen the behavioral capacity of the Sociobehavioral and Prevention Research Core and help better integrate substance use and mental health research into the work of CFAR. Her goals including strengthening connections among CFAR and UW behavioral researchers; exploring potential research linkages with upper campus centers such as the Addictive Behaviors Research Center (ABRC) and the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Institute (ADAI); developing interdisciplinary research projects; and providing training on qualitative research methodologies. Dr. Jane Simoni, UW Department of Psychology, jsimoni@u.washington.edu
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