Deanna Kerrigan

Headshot of Dr. Deanna Kerrigan, PhD, MPH

Deanna Kerrigan

Ph.D., M.P.H.

Professor and Chair, Department of Prevention and Community health


School: Milken Institute School of Public Health

Department: Prevention and Community Health

Deanna Kerrigan, PhD, MPH is Professor and Chair, Department of Prevention and Community Health, Milken Institute School of Public Health, The George Washington University.  Dr. Kerrigan is a socio-behavioral scientist whose research over the last 25 years has focused on the role of social and structural factors, including stigma, discrimination and violence, that shape the health and well-being of underserved and marginalized population groups. She has led multiple studies to develop and evaluate comprehensive community-based interventions for women at high risk for or living with HIV in the United States, Latin America and the Caribbean, as well as sub-Saharan Africa. She has led multiple NIH R01 awards that investigate and address socio-structural factors and HIV outcomes: “Community-based combination HIV prevention among Tanzanian women at heightened risk”, “Stigma, cohesion and HIV outcomes among vulnerable women across geographic settings” and “Patient and provider perspectives on long-acting injectable ART”. She is on the Executive Committee of the DC Center for AIDS Research (CFAR). She was previously Co-Director of the Prevention Core of the Johns Hopkins University (JHU) CFAR. She was faculty for 15 years at the JHU Bloomberg School of Public Health and continues as Adjunct Professor of Health, Behavior and Society. Dr. Kerrigan was also previously Professor of Sociology and Director of the Center on Health, Risk and Society at American University.  At JHU, she directed a large-scale USAID-funded, global HIV prevention implementation science portfolio, Research to Prevention (R2P) that spanned 30 implementation research projects across 18 countries. She was a member of the Senior Management Team for Project SOAR, the largest USAID-supported global HIV implementation science project to date involving 50 implementation science projects across 30 countries. At GW, she was recently awarded a NIMH T32 training grant award entitled “Training Program in Approaches to Address Social-Structural Factors Related to HIV Intersectionality (TASHI)”; along with colleague Dr. Lisa Bowleg. Dr. Kerrigan has been a mentor to over 10 NIH K (career development) awards, as well as numerous junior investigator awards such as CFAR pilot awards, Adelante awards, MARI awards and diversity supplements.