Alissa Davis, PhD

Alissa Davis is an Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Her research focuses on community-based participatory approaches to the development and evaluation of interventions to improve linkage to and retention in care for HIV/STIs, substance use, and mental health services to address health disparities among vulnerable populations, including racial/ethnic and sexual minorities, people who use drugs, and youth. Her intervention research focuses on the use of citizen science methods, such as crowdsourcing, to engage diverse communities in developing tailored health interventions and to address stigma as a barrier to care. She has conducted work domestically and internationally in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and China. Dr. Davis’ work includes intensive longitudinal methods (including daily diaries and ecological momentary assessment), dyad-based interventions, and the integration of biological and physiological assessments into behavioral research. Her work has been supported by a number of NIH institutes, the Mellon Foundation, and Columbia University. Before coming to the School of Social Work in July 2018, Dr. Davis was an NIH T32 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies at the Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. She received a PhD in Epidemiology from Indiana University-Bloomington and an MA in International Relations from Syracuse University.