Dr. Jae Sevelius (they/them) is a professor of medical psychology at the Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Sevelius obtained their MA in gender studies and PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Missouri. Dr. Sevelius is a clinical psychologist, behavioral health researcher, and intervention scientist leading an extensive portfolio of NIH-funded studies engaging transgender and gender-expansive individuals and communities. Dr. Sevelius developed the Model of Gender Affirmation, the first trans-specific conceptual model that aims to elucidate the role of gender affirmation on health-related behaviors and outcomes. To date, their research has focused on developing, testing, and disseminating peer-led interventions to promote sexual health and resilience among transgender people. These community-based HIV prevention and treatment programs focus primarily on serving transgender women of color in New York City, the San Francisco Bay Area, and São Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Sevelius is also a dedicated mentor of early-stage investigators, with a focus on those with backgrounds and identities that are underrepresented in academic medicine.

Orlando O. Harris, PhD is an associate professor of nursing in the Department of Community Health Systems, School of Nursing, and an associate professor of medicine in the Division of Prevention Science in the Department of Medicine at the University of California, San Francisco. His research focuses on the exploration of risk and protective factors in sexually and gender-diverse communities of color. He also focuses on understanding the relationships among intersectional stigma, violence, mental health, HIV, and other health-related behavior outcomes. Dr. Harris leverages multi-method data using community-based participatory research methods to inform culturally relevant interventions that improve the lives of vulnerable sexually and gender-diverse communities. His research aims to reduce disparities in health within these communities by developing programs that improve self-efficacy and promote resilience.

Dr. Lisa Bowleg is a leading scholar of the application of intersectionality to social and behavioral sciences health equity research, and is the founder and president of the Intersectionality Training Institute. She is also a co-director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC CFAR). Informed by intersectionality and other critical theoretical frameworks, her mixed-method research projects examine the effects of social–structural stressors (e.g., unemployment, incarceration, police brutality), intersectional stigma and discrimination, and protective factors on the mental, substance use, HIV, and physical health outcomes of Black U.S. men at diverse intersections of socioeconomic status and sexuality. She has published widely in several high-impact journals. She is an associate editor at AJPH and the editor of AJPH’s Perspectives from the Social Sciences section, and an editorial board member or consulting editor of numerous journals, including Archives of Sexual Behavior, Health Psychology, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Sex Research. In May 2021, GW awarded her its Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Scholarship (Research). In February 2022, Health, Education and Behavior, the journal of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE), awarded her the 2021 Lawrence W. Green Paper of the Year Award in honor of one of her articles. In 2023, NIMH named her the winner of its 2023 James S. Jackson Memorial Award.