CAPS Town Hall presents: Andrew Forsyth, PhD -- Vision and Priorities for CHRP

Dr. Andrew Forsyth is Director of the California HIV/AIDS Research Program (CHRP). He holds a Ph.D. in clinical health psychology from Syracuse University, and completed a post-doctoral fellowship with emphases in public health, research methodology, and statistics at the University of California, San Francisco. 

Before coming to CHRP, Dr. Forsyth served as the Director for the Office of Research and Science at the State Department’s Office of the Global AIDS Coordinator, which oversees the $6 billion President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In that capacity, he endeavored to harness lessons from research to improve programs; highlighted scientific advances made possible by PEPFAR funding; and helped to influence policy, funding decisions, and program implementation to accelerate HIV epidemic control in Botswana, Nigeria, and Tanzania.  Prior to this, Dr. Forsyth served as a Senior Science Officer in the Health and Human Services (HHS) Office of HIV/AIDS and Infectious Disease Policy, where he led departmental and White House working groups to achieve the goals of the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and the HIV Care Continuum Initiative. He launched and oversaw cross-agency efforts to streamline data collection, reduce reporting obligations for grantees, and develop data standards and outcome indicators. He also actively engaged a diverse range of federal and non-federal stakeholders in efforts to improve data reporting obligations.  Dr. Forsyth also spent nine years as a program officer developing and managing a $40 million prevention science portfolio at the National Institute of Mental Health’s (NIMH) Division of AIDS Research. In this capacity, he worked closely with new and established HIV scientists; managed a subset of NIMH’s research centers (including some of CHRP’s currently funded organized research groups); and served as a scientific liaison to several large HIV clinical trials networks for vaccines, microbicides, adolescent medicine, and HIV prevention that were supported in collaboration with other NIH Institutes and Centers.