Cynthia has worked in the HIV/AIDS service sector for more than 20 years. Cynthia has led many innovative HIV prevention programs at the AIDS Foundation of Chicago (AFC) that are changing the story of this disease from one of despair to one of hope.
Her work aims to support community and organizational engagement in capacity building, health interventions and to identify culturally responsive approaches in program planning and evaluation. Cynthia is an expert in curriculum development, capacity-building, program planning, training, and assessment.
Cynthia’s recent projects at AFC include the Safe and Sound Return Partnership and Corrections Case Management Program, which assist people emerging from jail or prison who are HIV-positive, and Women’s Connection, which engages cis- and trans- women of color around HIV care and prevention; and several capacity building programs. One innovative program she leads is the Learning Circle Collaborative, in which she works directly with HIV/Service organizations to build their infrastructure in board and fund development, communications and HR practices. Since 2008, Cynthia has led the Public Health Boot Camp, a program grounded in training to provide state-of-the-art public health training to community-based organization (CBO) HIV prevention/treatment service providers integrating public health, leadership and HIV/AIDS service delivery.
Prior to joining AFC in 2005, Cynthia was the director of prevention at the Chicago Women’s AIDS Project (CWAP) for eight years. At CWAP, she created new ways for engaging African-American communities and implemented programs that were responsive to the HIV/AIDS epidemic. CWAP is well known for working with vulnerable cis- and trans- women and for advancing advocacy on women’s issues, and Cynthia embodied the values behind that mission.
Cynthia holds a master’s degree in curriculum and instruction for community programs and a doctorate in public health. Her primary area of scholarship is curriculum development and training in the public health and health-related professions.
