To ensure that the Institute hears, engages, and incorporates the views of the HIV community, we look to our Community Advisory Board. Comprised of pioneers who have honed their leadership in diverse HIV communities, their expertise comes from a dedication to the well-being and respect for those living with and affected by HIV. We are grateful for their presence and are honored to present them below.
Lynda Dee
Lynda Dee is an HIV/AIDS treatment activist and was a co-founder of AIDS Action Baltimore in 1987. Ms. Dee has also worked as a cancer and HCV activist. She has worked for 32 years with academia, industry and government to expedite ethical drug development to provide access to life-saving medications before approval and to ensure reasonable drug prices and increases. She was co-chair of the first Martin Delaney Collaboratory for HIV Cure Research (MDC) CARE Community Advisory Board (CAB), and is currently co-chair of the MDC DARE CAB and the amfAR AIDS Institute for HIV Cure Research at USCF.
Ms. Dee has served on many national and local community and government advisory boards. She has been a member of various FDA Antiviral Drug Advisory approval panels and many NIH Advisory Boards, including NCI, the Office of AIDS Research Advisory Committee, NIMH, NIDS, NIDA, and NIAID, serving on the ACTG Executive Committee and their Community Constituency Group. She has also served on various industry HIV and HCV CABs and national and international CABs advisory boards, including the AIDS Treatment Activist Coalition. Ms. Dee is also a former chair and current member of the HIV and HCV Fair Pricing Coalition and is a former member of the Executive Committee and frequent presenter for the Forum for Collaborative HIV Research.
Loren Jones
Loren Jones has been HIV-positive for approximately 27 years and currently serves on the Alameda/Contra Costa County Community Consortium Planning Council for Ryan White Part A Services, where she is a voting member of the Person Living With HIV/AIDS (PLWHA) committee, Policy Education and Review committee, Quality Data and Services committee, and Prevention committee. She is also a steering committee member of the Positive Women’s Network which is the policy arm of the Oakland-based organization Women Organized to Respond to Life-threatening Diseases (WORLD).
Loren has previously served on the Alameda /Contra Costa Part D Executive Committee and on the California State Planning Council. She is also a licensed vocational nurse and a trained peer advocate.
Rob Newells
Minister Rob Newells assumed the role of Executive Director of AIDS Project of the East Bay in 2015 after serving a term as Chair of the agency’s Board of Directors. He has been an active community advocate since 1999, helping to develop HIV testing, outreach, and education programming for young black men in Raleigh-Durham, North Carolina. He also supported Technical Assistance and Training activities and served as the Publications Coordinator for NMAC in Washington, DC.
In 2011, Min. Rob was selected as one of 30 people living with HIV in the United States to help rollout NMAC’s Treatment Education, Advocacy and Mobilization (TEAM) Division. With the support of AVAC’s Prevention Research, Outreach, Advocacy, and Representation (PxROAR) program, he has worked nationally and internationally to address stigma and increase biomedical research literacy.
Jeff Taylor
HIV-positive for 35 years, Jeff has served as a community advisory to many research groups—beginning with the UCSD AntiViral Research Center CAB, and (what is now called) the Community Scientific Subcommittee of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group. He continues to serve on the NCI's AIDS Malignancy Consortium as a community representative to their Steering Committee, HPV Working Group, and the ANCHOR Study. He has additionally served on the DHHS AntiRetroviral Guidelines Panel, the community advisory board for the CARE Collaboratory, the UCSF amfAR Cure Institute CAB, and on the Program Committee for CROI. He also serves on the AIDS Treatment Activists Coalitions Drug Development Committee, which meets regularly with pharma and FDA on HIV drug development issues. Locally, Jeff produces a monthly education series on HIV treatment issues for HIV patients and providers, serves on the regional Ryan White Planning Council, and is director of the newly formed Coachella Valley Community Research Initiative to study aging in HIV.