No better way to wrap up a great year than with uncensored convo, kebabs (although Kang’s vegetarian grilling needs an intervention), and extraordinary people.

Congratulations to Garima and Sana who have been fixtures in the GCH Lab since their sophomore years. Sana will continue to oversee our project in India (whew) before considering graduate school. Garima will begin her Masters studies in International Relations at Johns Hopkins (yep fully funded). So proud.

At Howard Research Week, Sana introduces the Islamic tenet of Ummah and how it guides the formation of allyship in social movements (senior honors thesis). She also presented our project with Shalom Delhi, examining caregiver support of family members with cancer or HIV in Delhi, India. #storyteller

We honor Pope Francis who modeled respect for all…no exception. In this iconic photo he embraced Vinicio Riva, a beloved with Neurofibromatosis. Kalei Hosaka (former student) published this timely article in the Linacre Quarterly which calls for such a posture in medical practice.

Welcome Zain Mensah, an undergraduate psychology major (pre-med) student who was awarded the 2024-25 NIH supported DC-CFAR scholar award (link scrubbed since Jan 2025). His research will focus on mapping effective collaboration between researchers and adults living with PHIV. Welcome to lab!

Victor was an invited moderator for a panel, Living Into Young Adulthood With Perinatal HIV at the Conference for Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI), Denver. See this video clip of the audience singing happy birthday to his son - very cool. Also, listen to Kang’s presentation, Historic Evolution of HIV and Mental Well-Being Among Adults Living With Perinatally Acquired HIV.