Lisa Bowleg

Dr. Bowleg has substantial mentoring experience, particularly related to areas of expertise in intersectionality, mixed methods research, social-structural stressors and protective factors, and HIV prevention research in racial/ethnic minority communities. For 20 years, her programs of research have focused on: (1) the effects of social-structural context, masculinity, and resilience on Black men’s sexual HIV risk and protective behaviors; and (2) experiences of intersectionality-related stress and resilience among racial/ethnic and sexual minority people, particularly Black lesbian, gay and bisexual people. She is also a leading scholar of intersectionality, a theoretical framework that informs the proposed work. She is the PI of five NIH-funded mixed methods studies. Two of them are current. The first, “Strengths and Stressors”, is a NIDA-funded R01 grant that uses the intersectionality framework to examine the effects of intersectional discrimination and social-structural stressors (e.g., incarceration, unemployment) on substance use and co-occurring negative mental and physical health among Black boys and men at different intersections of sexual minority status and socioeconomic position. The second, “PRISM”, is a NIMH-funded R21 project designed to develop measures of multilevel intersectional stigma for young Black gay, bisexual and other men who have sex with men in Washington, DC and Jackson, MS.   Combining innovative and multidisciplinary theoretical frameworks and using qualitative and mixed methods are hallmarks of my research.  As the founding director of the new Intersectionality Training Institute (ITI) at GWU, she will help to integrate the ITI’s resources with scholars’ training needs. Dr. Bowleg’s predoctoral mentoring experience includes 10 previous trainees who have successfully completed their Ph.D.s as well as three current Ph.D. students.