Maria Cecilia Zea

Maria Cecilia Zea, PhD is Professor in the Department of Psychological and Brain Sciences, at the George Washington University.  Dr. Zea founded the Latino Health Research Center in 2008 and is one of the founding members of the District of Columbia Center for AIDS Research, including when it was a Developmental CFAR. She was Director and subsequently became Co-Director of the Social and Behavioral Science Core of the DC CFAR. Dr. Zea is a bilingual, bicultural researcher with a background in Clinical/Community psychology. She has expertise in HIV social and behavioral research among Latino/a cisgender (male and female) and transgender women. She has been the PI of three NIH- funded R01s: 1) Disclosure of HIV status among Latino MSM in Washington DC, New York City, and Boston; 2) Contextual factors of sexual risk among Brazilian, Colombian, and Dominican immigrant MSM; 3) HIV prevalence, sexual risk, and attitudes toward circumcision among Colombian MSM. Dr. Zea was also the PI for a NIMH-funded R34 award to develop a WebNovela to promote HIV testing among Colombian MSM. She has been co-investigator in several other federally funded studies, which include African American and Latina women, people with disabilities, as well as substance users. Dr. Zea has served as Director and Co-Director of the Social and Behavioral Science Core and co-lead of the Sexual and Gender Minorities Scientific Working Group (SWG) and the Highly Impacted Populations SWG. She is strongly committed to mentoring ethnically diverse early career faculty and post- doctoral trainees: having mentored 24 ethnic minority and non-minority graduate students (9 of whom received F31 awards); 5 post docs (2 K23 awards, 1 F32 award; 2 other awards); and 8 faculty members.  Dr. Zea has chaired 22 dissertations and 19 Masters’ theses and continues to be involved in mentoring early career faculty.