The Fogarty-IeDEA Mentorship Program (FIMP)

Dyna Khuon, University of Health Science, Cambodia

Dyna Khuon obtained her Ph.D. in epidemiology from the University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA) in 2021, as a D43 trainee in the UCLA/Cambodia HIV/AIDS Training Program in Data Management & Analysis. She graduated as a pharmacist from the University of Health Sciences in Phnom Penh, Cambodia, and has a master’s degree in nutrition from the country’s National Institute of Public Health. Her research interests include HIV, sexually transmitted infections, mental health, mother and child nutrition, and non-communicable diseases. Under the FIMP, her research has focused on the following topics: “BMI as a predictor of high fasting blood glucose among people living with HIV in the Asia-Pacific region’ and ‘Incidence and risk factors of hypertension and high total cholesterol among people living with HIV in the Asia Pacific region: the TREAT Asia HIV Observational Database (TAHOD).”   After completing her Ph.D., she returned to the University of Health Sciences as a public health professional, and conducts local research with a focus on HIV, comorbidities, and mental health outcomes among aging populations.

Johanna Beulah Tria Sornillo, Research Institute for Tropical Medicine, Philippines

Jobel Sornillo has a master’s degree in public health from the University of the Philippines and is a researcher in the Department of Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Research Institute for Tropical Medicine (RITM), a TREAT Asia network site. She has been working with researchers in the institute on technical paper-writing, project coordination, and data management and analyses for research projects since 2011. She is a licensed medical technologist, with field and laboratory experience on malaria and other neglected tropical disease projects. Under the FIMP she is studying the following topics: “Pediatric disclosure of HIV status and associated treatment and disease outcomes of children and adolescents living with HIV in Asia” and “Trends in characteristics of children and adolescents living with HIV at enrollment and at ART initiation in Asia.” She is increasingly involved in large-scale research studies at RITM that contribute to improved health service delivery, and assesses interventions that address HIV and other infectious and tropical diseases.

Smita Nimkar, BJ Medical College–Johns Hopkins University Clinical Research Site, India

Smita Nimkar is a lead research coordinator on IeDEA Asia-Pacific studies at BJ Medical College in Pune, India. In that role, she is a co-investigator in the IeDEA Sentinel Research Network study as well. She is currently pursuing a Ph.D. in health and biomedical sciences at the Symbiosis International University in Pune. Her own research includes HIV-related comorbidities, treatment outcomes, and mental health among children, adolescents, and adults. In the future, she wants to study implementing HIV and TB prevention and mental health screening strategies in public health settings. Her FIMP analysis will focus on the long-term antiretroviral treatment outcomes in children and adolescents in the TREAT Asia network.

Maylin Palatino, Philippines

Maylin Palatino received her master’s in public health from the University of the Philippines Manila and an ScM Biostatistics degree from Brown University. She was a D43 trainee of the Brown University and University of the Philippines Training Program for the Prevention of HIV in Vulnerable Populations. In May 2022, she started working as a biostatistician at the University of Maryland School of Medicine. Her research interests include HIV and non-communicable diseases. For her FIMP project, she will investigate trends in detectable viral loads among adults living with HIV in the TREAT Asia network.