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Biography
Dr. Elena Cyrus is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Population Health Sciences at the College of Medicine. She is an infectious disease epidemiologist with research experience in Sub-Saharan Africa, Southeast Asia, and the Latin American and Caribbean region. Her research focuses on investigating social determinants of health contributing toward health inequities among vulnerable populations globally. Dr. Cyrus is a Fogarty global health equity alumnus and completed her fellowship with Yale University in Lima, Perú. Before her doctoral training, Dr. Cyrus was a clinical trials manager with the HIV Prevention Trial Network for the Tenofovir feasibility and safety trials.
Following her post-doctoral training, she was awarded a National Institute of Drug Abuse training grant and a National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Addiction Loan Repayment award. These NIH-funded projects are focused on the prevention of substance use and HIV among high-risk women. She has recently published papers on the burden of COVID-19 in African American communities and increasing substance use during the same public health emergency.
Dr. Cyrus obtained her Ph.D. in Public Health with a concentration in Epidemiology from FIU’s Robert Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work, and earned a Master in Public Health at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine. Dr. Cyrus has been the recipient of a number of awards, including the FIU Worlds Ahead award for her doctoral work, and the Rising Star in Biomedical Research award from MIT.
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