Lisa Bowleg

Lisa Bowleg
Professor, Applied Social Psychology, Director DC CFAR Social and Behavioral Sciences
Core
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Dr. Bowleg is a leading scholar of the application of intersectionality to social and behavioral sciences
health equity research, is the Founder and President of the Intersectionality Training Institute. She is
also a Co-Director of the Social and Behavioral Sciences Core of the DC Center for AIDS Research (DC
CFAR). Informed by intersectionality and other critical theoretical frameworks, her mixed methods
research projects examine the effects of social-structural stressors (e.g., unemployment, incarceration,
police brutality), intersectional stigma and discrimination, and protective factors on the mental,
substance use, HIV, and physical health outcomes of U.S. Black men at diverse intersections of
socioeconomic status and sexuality. Another program of research examines the effects of intersectional
discrimination and protective factors among Black lesbian, gay and bisexual people in the U.S. She has
served as a principal investigator (PI) or joint PI of seven National Institutes of Health (NIH)-funded
projects and the WK Kellogg Foundation-funded, Intersectionality Policymaking Toolkit Project. Dr.
Bowleg is the PI of two current NIH-funded intersectionality grants (NIMH: 1 R21 MH121313-01; NIDA: 1
R01 DA045773-01); a project director of a NIAID-funded intersectionality-focused DC CFAR
Administrative Supplement; and the joint-PI (with Dr. Deanna Kerrigan) of a T32 grant (1 T32
MH130247-01), titled, Training Program in Approaches to Address Social-Structural Factors Related to
HIV Intersectionality (TASHI). She has published widely in high impact journals such as American
Psychologist, the American Journal of Public Health (AJPH), and Health Psychology. She is an associate
editor at AJPH and the editor of AJPH’s Perspectives from the Social Sciences section, and an editorial
board member or consulting editor of numerous journals including Archives of Sexual Behavior, Health
Psychology, Social Science and Medicine, and the Journal of Sex Research. In May 2021, GW awarded
her its Oscar and Shoshana Trachtenberg Prize for Scholarship (Research). In February 2022, Health,
Education and Behavior, the journal of the Society for Public Health Education (SOPHE), awarded her the 2021 Lawrence W. Green Paper of the Year Award in honor of her article, “The Master’s Tools Will Never
Dismantle the Master’s House”: Ten Critical Lessons for Black and Other Health Equity Researchers of
Color.” In 2023, NIMH named her the winner of its 2023 James S. Jackson Memorial Award.
Ph.D., 1997 The George Washington University, Applied Social Psychology
M.A., 1991 The George Washington University, Public Policy, Concentration in Women’s Studies