Rapporteurs

Katherine Bar

University of Pennsylvania, United States

Katharine Bar is an Associate Professor of Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania and directs the Virus and Reservoirs Core of the Penn Center for AIDS Research. At Penn, she is an infectious diseases provider and a translational physician-scientist studying novel approaches to HIV prevention and cure. Through her roles in the HIV Vaccines Trials Network and the AIDS Clinical Trials Group, Katharine leads trials testing novel applications of antibodies for prevention, therapy and cure.

Kevin Maroney

University of Alabama at Birmingham, United States

Kevin Maroney studied for a Bachelor’s in genetics and a Master’s in biotechnology at the University of California, Irvine. In his time there, in the lab of Ilhem Messaoudi, he also studied, in macaques, the transcriptional response to isolates from various regions of the West African Ebola with collaborator Andrea Marzi. Continuing his interest in host-pathogen interactions, he is doing his research in the laboratory of Paul Goepfert and Anju Bansal, studying the HLA-E restricted immune response to HIV-1 with the goal of significantly furthering efficacious HIV-1 vaccine development.

Kiho Tanaka

Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity, Australia

Kiho Tanaka is a graduate researcher in the Department of Infectious Diseases at the University of Melbourne and the Peter Doherty Institute for Infection and Immunity in Australia. Her projects focus on HIV latency reversal and anti-HIV immunity. She is currently working with novel small molecules to reverse cell exhaustion in order to improve HIV-specific immune effector functions. She is also passionate about scientific communication.

Livia Ramos Goes

Brazilian National Cancer Institute (INCA), Brazil

Livia Ramos Goes, PhD, is a researcher at the Brazilian National Cancer Institute’s Department of Genetics and Oncovirology and a Professor in the postgraduate programme in oncology. With over 10 years of expertise in HIV, her research focuses on primary resistance, molecular epidemiology and HIV gut tropism. She holds a Bachelor’s in biological sciences, a Master’s in genetics from the Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, and a PhD in oncovirology from the Brazilian National Cancer Institute. Livia was a visiting fellow at NIAID-NIH under Anthony Fauci’s mentorship and was selected as an IAS Research-for-Cure Academy Fellow in 2019.

Juan Ambrosioni

Hospital Clinic Barcelona and University of Barcelona, Spain

Juan Ambrosioni, MD, PhD, is a staff physician of the HIV/AIDS Unit and Infectious Disease Service, Hospital Clinic-IDIBAPS, and Assistant Professor at the University of Barcelona, Spain. He is an ID specialist from the University of Buenos Aires, Argentina, and the University of Geneva, Switzerland. He is the author of more than 200 peer-reviewed scientific articles indexed in PubMed; in more than one-third, he is first, last and/or corresponding author. He is the principal investigator of several national and international projects in the field of HIV and related infections. Main research topics include antiretroviral therapy, HIV functional cure and opportunistic infections (mostly TB). He is a member of the Governing Board of the European AIDS Clinical Society (EACS) and the EACS Guidelines Coordinator.

Jasmini Alagaratnam

Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Trust and Imperial College London, United Kingdom

Jasmini Alagaratnam is a consultant physician in the field of sexual health and HIV medicine at Chelsea & Westminster Hospital NHS Trust and an honorary clinical senior lecturer in the Department of Infectious Disease at Imperial College London. She completed her clinical PhD in 2021 at Imperial College London, where she investigated neural activation and HIV reservoir size in people living with treated HIV undergoing interventions, including HIV cure strategies. Her specialist interests include the management of cardiovascular, metabolic and neurological co-morbidities in people living with treated HIV. Her current research focuses on investigating biomarkers associated with cognitive decline and the use of molecular diagnostics to improve the management of people living with HIV. She is the Young Scientist on the Co-morbidities panel of the European AIDS Clinical Society Guidelines and a panel member on the British HIV Association Monitoring Guidelines.

Ezequiel Córdova

Hospital Cosme Argerich and Fundación IDEAA, Argentina

Ezequiel Córdova, MD, is a specialist in infectious diseases and clinical pharmacology. He works as an infectious diseases physician at the Infectious Diseases Unit of Hospital Cosme Argerich and as an HIV clinical investigator at Fundación IDEAA in Buenos Aires, Argentina. He is an Assistant Professor of Infectious Diseases at the University of Buenos Aires. He is also an Associate Editor for Actualizaciones en SIDA e Infectología journal and a member of the HIV and STI Commission of the Sociedad Argentina de Infectología. Furthermore, he coordinates the “Pharmacology of Antiretroviral Drugs” chapter in the Argentinian Guidelines on Antiretroviral Treatment. His main research interests include clinical pharmacology of antiretroviral treatment, TB/HIV co-infection and antimicrobial resistance.

Simiso Sokhela

Biography pending.

Rayner Kay Jin Tan

National University of Singapore, Singapore

Rayner Kay Jin Tan is an Assistant Professor at the Saw Swee Hock School of Public Health, National University of Singapore and National University Health System, Singapore. He is a social and behavioural scientist by training, and his research interests include stigma and health, community engagement, implementation science and health of vulnerable communities. He was an Organizing Committee member at IAS 2023 in Brisbane, Australia. He is a Deputy Editor of the Journal of the International AIDS Society and an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Behavioral Medicine. He is also President of Project X and Chairperson at The Greenhouse Community Services Limited; these community-based organizations serve sex workers and people who use drugs, respectively, in Singapore.

Bogadi Loabile

University of Pennsylvania, Botswana

Bogadi Loabile, MD, MPH, MSCE, is an early-career investigator and Instructor of Medicine in the Division of Infectious Disease at the University of Pennsylvania. Following her residency in internal medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine affiliated with Queens Hospital Center in Queens, New York, she completed a clinical fellowship in infectious disease at UPenn. She also completed a Master of Science in epidemiology and has since leveraged the Botswana-UPenn Partnership to support building a research career in central, eastern, southern and western Africa. Her interests include using implementation science to improve sexual and reproductive healthcare, including PrEP delivery, for women in resource-limited settings.

Boris Tchounga

Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation, Cameroon

Boris Tchounga, MD, PhD, is a health professional with 15 years of experience implementing global health research and evaluation projects. He currently serves as the Director of Public Health Evaluation and Research at the Elisabeth Glaser Pediatric AIDS Foundation in Cameroon. He started his career in epidemiology of infectious diseases, mainly HIV-2 and HIV-1/HIV-2 dual infections. He then explored HIV-1 and related conditions, such as tuberculosis, advanced HIV disease and AIDS-related malignancies. He also intensively contributed to COVID-19 evidence generation, and is now exploring implementation sciences, knowledge management and translation of evidence into public health practice.

Carina Cesar

Fundación Huésped, Argentina

Carina Cesar is a specialist in infectious diseases from the University of Buenos Aires and holds a Master’s in clinical epidemiology from the University of Sydney. She is a researcher at Fundación Huésped in Buenos Aires and serves as sub-investigator for the Argentine site of the Caribbean, Central and South America Network for HIV Epidemiology (CCASAnet). Her research focuses on antiretroviral therapy, the HIV care cascade, implementation of new diagnostic tools and PrEP.

Jamaica AIDS Support for Life, Jamaica

Xavier Biggs is the Monitoring & Evaluation Manager at Jamaica AIDS Support for Life (JASL). He has been working in civil society organizations (CSOs) for the past 15 years. He is credited for transforming monitoring, evaluation and learning at JASL and the wider HIV CSO response in Jamaica by establishing a series of standardized tools and knowledge products hailed as best practices by partners and adapted and adopted locally and across the Caribbean. He also provides technical support to the Strategic Information Unit of the Ministry of Health and Wellness through his participation in a series of technical working groups.

Joyce Kamanzi

University Teaching Hospital of Butare, Rwanda

Joyce Kamanzi is an internationally trained scholar, nurse and researcher specializing in maternal and child health, community health and social determinants of health. She is a faculty member at the University of Calgary and collaborates on research projects in Rwanda, Canada and Sweden. Joyce’s research focuses on healthcare client safety, healthcare quality, mental health and disease prevention, with particular interest in childhood illnesses, HIV and AIDS, and vertical HIV transmission. She completed the International Vaccine Institute course and has contributed to vaccinology and clinical trials at the University of Rwanda. She is committed to global health equity through various non-profit organizations.

Keren Dunaway

Llanto, Valory Esfuerzo, Honduras

Keren Dunaway is a passionate advocate for gender equality and human rights. At Llanto, Valory Esfuerzo (LLAVES), she works to elevate the rights of women living with HIV in Latin American political agendas, spearheading initiatives focused on youth empowerment and women’s rights. Keren also supports the youth volunteer network in Honduras, where she fosters collaborations with feminist organizations and sexual and reproductive health and rights groups across the region. As a dedicated community researcher, her work on gender equity has significantly shaped policy dialogue and advocacy efforts.

Orlando O Harris

University of California, San Francisco, United States

Orlando O Harris, PhD, RN, FNP, MPH, FAAN, is an Associate Professor of Nursing in the Department of Community Health Systems, School of Nursing, Associate Professor of Medicine in the Division of Prevention Science in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), and Fellow of the American Academy of Nursing. Orlando is also the Co-Director of the Scientific Working Group on Intersectionality in the Center for AIDS Research at UCSF. He uses community-based participatory research methods and leverages multi-methods data to determine culturally relevant interventions that improve the lives of vulnerable sexual and gender minorities in the US and the Caribbean. He published one of the first papers in the Caribbean to address sexual violence among sexual minority men in Jamaica. He aims to create spaces where stories from sexual and gender minorities are shared with authenticity to eliminate disparities in health among this population.

Brenda Asiimwe Kateera

Clinton Health Access Initiative, Rwanda

Brenda Kateera is a global health specialist, epidemiologist and researcher with more than 20 years’ experience in leading public health programmes, in academia and in policy. She is currently the Country Director for the Clinton Health Access Initiative (CHAI) in Rwanda, partnering with the Government of Rwanda to strengthen health systems and ensure universal healthcare coverage. Previously, she was the Rwanda Country Director for the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Director of the Grants and Research Center and senior lecturer at the University of Rwanda. Brenda has a medical degree from Makerere University, Uganda, and Master’s in public health from Johns Hopkins University. She is currently a visiting scientist and LEAD Fellow at Harvard TH Chan School of Public Health. She has led and coordinated multi-donor and partner research and training initiatives, has several peer-reviewed publications, and has been an invited speaker at conferences and meetings. She serves on several boards and advisory groups.

Dorothy I Mangale

University of Washington, United States

Biography pending.

Marie Vicart

L’Initiative at Expertise France, Rwanda

Marie Vicart is a global health specialist with 18 years of experience in HIV programme management, community health and health systems strengthening. She is currently based in Kigali as Senior Portfolio Manager for L'Initiative (Expertise France), a French facility that complements the work of the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria. Her work focuses on implementing technical assistance and providing additional funding for catalytic projects in Rwanda and Burundi. Her expertise includes developing HIV services for key populations in France and internationally through her work with Groupe SOS Solidarités, MSF, PharmAccess and PUI. She specializes in community health approaches and equitable service delivery for vulnerable populations.

Paulo Dos Santos

Hospital General de Agudos Dr. Juan A. Fernández, Argentina

Paulo Dos Santos is a 28-year-old physician from Buenos Aires, Argentina. He works in the Infectious Diseases Department at Hospital Fernandez, providing healthcare to people vulnerable to acquiring HIV in its HIV/STI clinic. He is also a sub-investigator on research projects and trials run by the department and a lecturer at the University of Buenos Aires and the University of Business and Social Sciences Medical Schools.