Enhancing the diversity of the biomedical research workforce is a key priority for the United States. Undergraduates from minority backgrounds who are underrepresented in the fields of public health and HIV prevention research may be inspired to consider these career paths by participating in highly applied mentored research experiences. This 45-minute interactive panel discussion, moderated by Dr. John Sauceda, will enlist three alumni scholars from the San Francisco Department of Public Health and UCSF Summer HIV/AIDS Research Program (SHARP). Panelists will reveal how the program influenced their current training and work trajectories.

The session will highlight two successful experiences in prevention in Brazil, explore the concept of prevention popcorn carried out by GAPA-Bahia, and the International Youth and HIV / AIDS prevention seminar: Forming Advocacy in PrEP, carried out by the NGO Vida em Movimento.

This audio performance focuses on the manifold practices of discrimination encountered by transgender (TG) youth existing with HIV. The show is performed by transgender community members, intending to create a pathway for inclusion of young PLHIV in both transgender communities and wider society. The eight participants are from the transgender-Kothi-Hijra community in small-town and rural areas of West Bengal, India. The show illustrates a young transgender woman who has been facing continuous physical assaults by her cis-gendered male partner. She also has also faced unremitting ostracization by her family and society upon her disclosure of being HIV positive. As the drama unfolds, she gets support and moral encouragement from others in her TG community, seven of whom unite and resist the violence against her in order to protect her. Through their solidarity, they succeed in reintegrating the victimized transgender person with her family and neighbors. The program concludes with a celebratory dance on the song of poet Rabindranath Tagore’s mellifluous lines, “pothe ebar nabo sathi”, which means "let's come together and realize our shared struggles".