December 2011 VSTH Meeting Speakers

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Speakers' Biographies

Jonathan Mermin, MD, MPH

Director, Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention, National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention, CDC

Jonathan Mermin, MD, MPH, is Director of the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention (DHAP), which leads CDC's domestic HIV activities. Prior to starting as the DHAP Director in July 2009, Mermin served as Director of CDC Kenya and HHS Public Health Attaché for the U.S. Embassy for three years. He oversaw programs and research involving a broad range of infectious diseases, including HIV/AIDS, malaria, tuberculosis, and emerging infections, and coordinated health protection and communication activities across multiple CDC centers and field stations.

From 1999 to 2006, Dr. Mermin served as Director of CDC Uganda, where he oversaw the initiation, expansion, and evaluation of CDC Uganda's HIV prevention and care programs. Prior to this, he was a preventive medicine resident at the California Department of Health Services, an Epidemic Intelligence Service (EIS) Officer with the Foodborne and Diarrheal Diseases Branch at CDC, and an internal medicine resident at San Francisco General Hospital, taking care of patients with HIV and other illnesses.

Dr. Mermin is an author of more than 100 scientific publications. He is a graduate of Harvard College, Stanford University School of Medicine, and received his MPH from Emory University.

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Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH, FACP

Assistant Commissioner, Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control, New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene

Monica Sweeney, MD, MPH, is Assistant Commissioner of the Bureau of HIV/AIDS Prevention and Control at the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Dr. Sweeney oversees a comprehensive effort to improve HIV prevention, diagnosis, care, treatment, and case management. Since 2007, she has managed the expansion of the NYC Condom campaign and the launch of the Bronx Knows HIV Testing Initiative. She has also overseen the first effort to estimate the annual number of new HIV infections in New York City.

Before coming to the health department, Dr. Sweeney served as medical director and then vice president of medical affairs at the Bedford Stuyvesant Family Health Center in Brooklyn, where she provided primary care for 18 years. Dr. Sweeney also served as a member of the Presidential Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, as president of the Kings County Medical Society, and as co-chair of the Physician Prevention Advisory Council, which is a project of the New York State Health Department's AIDS Institute. She is also an assistant professor at the State University of New York (SUNY) Downstate's School of Public Health, and adjunct professor at the Sophie Davis School of Biomedical Education.

Dr. Sweeney is the health department's face of HIV in the media. She has appeared on all major television stations and has been a guest on many popular radio stations, in addition to being the host of her own television program, Healthbeat Brooklyn, for the past four years.

Dr. Sweeney is the author of Condom Sense: A Guide to Sexual Survival in the New Millennium. She holds a medical degree from the SUNY Downstate Medical Center and a MPH from the Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health.

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DeAnn Gruber, PhD, LSCW

Administrative Director, STD/HIV Program, Louisiana Office of Public Health

DeAnn Gruber, PhD, LCSW, is the Administrative Director of the Louisiana Office of Public Health, STD/HIV Program. Dr. Gruber's experience includes more than 20 years in the HIV/AIDS field and her areas of expertise include program management/administration, planning and evaluation, and resource development and grant writing. Dr. Gruber is also an Adjunct Associate Professor at Louisiana State University, School of Public Health in the Behavioral and Community Health Sciences Program, teaching classes in Program Evaluation and Community-Based Participatory Research.

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Jane Herwehe, MPH

Special Projects Coordinator, Health Care Services Division, Louisiana State University

Jane Herwehe, MPH, is the Special Projects Coordinator at the Louisiana State University Health Care Services Division (HCSD). Ms. Herwehe has 22 years of experience in public health, with the majority of these years in the management of HIV/AIDS programs, including the implementation and evaluation of Ryan White programs. With Louisiana State University, she directs various systems' level disease management initiatives for the Chief Medical Officer and coordinates projects that interface the public hospital system and the Louisiana Department of Health and Hospitals public health programs. She has directed two Health Resources and Services Administration (HRSA) funded Special Projects of National Significance (SPNS) initiatives evaluating the impact of information technology and electronic networks on HIV care.

Currently, she directs the HRSA-funded SPNS electronic networks of care demonstration project known as the Louisiana Public Health Information Exchange (LaPHIE). She has served as an advisory member of the Louisiana Health Information Security and Privacy Collaborative project and worked closely with the National Alliance on Health Information Technology on the development of methodology for the qualitative research on the consumer perspectives on electronic health records and electronic sharing of protected health information. In addition to her public health training, she has completed course work and certification in BioMedical Informatics sponsored by the National Library of Medicine and public health informatics sponsored by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. In 2006, she was one of only two HCSD system employees awarded the Chief Medical Officer's award for excellence in Health Care Effectiveness. In addition to her duties with HCSD, she previously consulted with the Office of Public Health STD/HIV Program as the Service Evaluation Coordinator to facilitate Continuous Quality Improvement projects for the Ryan White Part B program.

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