Kim Blankeship

Kim M Blankenship, PhD, MA is a Professor of Sociology and Associate Dean of Research at American University. She has been conducting social science research on HIV/AIDS since 1994. This research has focused on the social determinants of HIV risk, particularly among women (especially sex workers), drug users, and criminal justice affected communities, as well as on structural interventions to address this risk, including community led structural interventions. Dr. Blankenship has authored several key articles developing frameworks for conceptualizing and understanding structural interventions and has done extensive work analyzing the implementation and impact of such interventions, particularly community led structural interventions to address vulnerability to HIV among female sex workers in India. Much of her recent research has focused on social relations, structures and processes of race, class, and gender inequality, particularly as they are represented by “mass incarceration,” including individual involvement with the criminal justice system, community supervision, policing practices, and policies (drug policies and housing policies) and their impacts on health (especially HIV and STIs) and health inequities. She has extensive experience in different data collection and related analytical techniques, including semi-structured interviewing, ethnography, and survey design and implementation. She has also combined these strategies in developing mixed methods research. Dr. Blankenship has considerable experience leading multidisciplinary teams of researchers in multi-site projects, has also mentored numerous post- and pre-doctoral fellows, as well as over 30 (just in the past 10 years) undergraduate students, and has received NIDA summer supplements for undergraduate student training as well.