Larkin Callaghan

Global Health and Development Researcher and Strategic Communications Consultant in San Francisco, California

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With training in behavioral and social epidemiology, I’m a global health and development researcher and communications specialist, with a specific focus in HIV, rights and access to care, and sustainable models for treatment. I have a number of years of experience working in and with teams in 20 countries in sub-Saharan Africa, South America, and Southeast Asia.

I completed my doctorate at Columbia University, with research in HIV, health disparities, and how those issues interplay with health systems. My primary epidemiological focus is infectious disease in sexual health (including the impact of sexual violence in conflict); my primary applied focuses are international development and capacity building in developing countries, and effectively communicating science research for advocacy and policy. I completed a public health journalism fellowship at Columbia, where I was trained in translating research into policy and advocacy messaging and communications.

Following this, I directed the global health education and training programs at Stanford School of Medicine, working to develop and launch projects in 10+ developing countries; I also was a professor of global health research methods. I then became managing director of the UCSF-Gladstone Center for AIDS Research, focused on HIV research development and scaling up international partnerships in East Africa. I subsequently served as the Deputy Project Director for Implementation for the PHIA Project, a CDC-funded PEPFAR surveillance project spanning 13 sub-Saharan countries at ICAP at Columbia, assessing PEPFAR's contributions to reducing HIV incidence, increasing viral load suppression, and upping the number of HIV-infected persons on treatment. In each of these roles, I oversaw project partnerships with foreign governments, ministries of health, federal agencies, and partners in country. I now direct strategy, communications, and partnerships for the AIDS Research Institute at UCSF.

I continue to work as a freelance writer and strategic communications consultant, and have been a contracted NIH grant writer. As a UN correspondent I worked with country missions, ambassadors, and press secretaries; as a research reporter for Women Under Siege I codified some of the earliest cases of sexual violence in Syria's civil war. With bylines and as a ghostwriter, I draft editorials, craft talking points and speeches, and advise on pressers, media strategies, and PR for global health groups and NGOs.

  • Work
    • Columbia University, Mailman
  • Education
    • Columbia University
    • University of Southern California