Diversity Scholars
Mentoring for HIV Prevention and Care Research – The ATN Diversity Scholars Program
The ATN-YEAH provides expertise, consultation, and advice to the ATN. The group makes sure that the ATN’s research agenda addresses the needs of youth. Members also provide feedback on recruitment materials, policies, procedures, and research protocols. They will also serve as liaisons to local ATN-related Community Advisory Boards around the country. The members meet quarterly via virtual meetings, and once a year they meet face-to-face. The face-to-face meeting involves professional development workshops, group discussion, and rapport-building activities.
Press play to watch the video to hear from four participants in the program, and see a text transcript below.
Video Transcript
Text onscreen: Melissa Marzán, DrPH, MPH, CPH, Post Doctoral Research Fellow, University of Puerto Rico
Melissa Marzán: When you are working with communities…and you empower communities, I think that this most important that you can do as a researcher.
Text onscreen: Sean Arayasirikul, PhD, Assistant Professor, University of California, San Francisco; Senior Research Scientist, San Francisco Department of Public Health
Sean Arayasirikul: It really is a commitment to a community, and it’s a commitment to a cause. It’s an opportunity to be connected to some of this nation and this world’s leading researchers. It is also a chance, and for many of us, those chances are few and far between.
Text onscreen: Tashuna Albritton, PhD, MSW, Assistant Medical Professor, CUNY School of Medicine
Tashuna Albritton: I think it’s important for folks like myself to have opportunities to be engaged in the scientific community around prevention.
Melissa Marzán: I think that is a way to connect with them and to try to explore new opportunities to continue my research career.
Text onscreen: Dennis Dalmacio Flores, PhD, ACRN, Assistant Professor, University of Pennsylvania School of Nursing
Dennis Dalmacio Flores: This is something that I find really inspiring, and so I do want to follow that path.
Sean Arayasirikul: The role of my mentor is one who advises, without being a sign post.
Tashuna Albritton: There is certainly opportunities for kind of professional development.
Sean Arayasirikul: Someone who doesn’t just show me what to do, and why it must be done, but someone who connects that with who I am, my purpose, and how it could impact society in the ways I would like to impact society.
Dennis Dalmacio Flores: I will get a chance to be in the room when ideas are conceptualized, and I’m able to at some point present my own ideas and get some feedback from people who know how it’s supposed to be done.
Tashuna Albritton: I think that this is an opportunity for folks to kind of flourish … if they take advantage of what the scholars program has to offer.
Text onscreen:
Music credits: Carefree by Ron Gelinas, soundcloud.com/atmospheric-music-portal
ATN is funded by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) through the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (NICHD), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), and the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD). Research reported in this publication was supported by the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health & Human Development of the National Institutes of Health under Award Number U24HD089880.
The content is solely the responsibility of the authors and does not necessarily represent the official views of the National Institutes of Health.
The Adolescent Medicine Trials Network for HIV/AIDS Interventions (ATN) research program aims to defeat the rising HIV epidemic among adolescents and young adults in the United States. ATN is led by investigators with innovative thinking and novel approaches to increase awareness of HIV status in youth and, for those diagnosed with HIV, increase access to health care. Visit https://atnweb.org to learn more.