Megan Dunbar, DrPH, MPH
Prevention Consultant
Megan Dunbar, Prevention Consultant at Pangaea Global AIDS Foundation, is an emerging leader in global HIV prevention efforts among women and youth. Her particular expertise is in designing and evaluating interventions that address the social and economic factors which increase HIV vulnerability, such as gender-based violence and inequities in educational and economic opportunities for girls and women. Formerly with the University of California, San Francisco, now a Public Health Scientist with the Women’s Global Health Imperative, a program of RTI International, Dr. Dunbar has spent nearly a decade leading initiatives in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, where she lived for several years.
In her position at Pangaea, Dr. Dunbar supports initiatives designed to link HIV prevention and treatment activities, with a particular focus on designing and evaluating special programs on the intersection of poverty, gender and youth development. The major objectives of her research portfolio are to reduce the risk of HIV among women and youth, including orphans and vulnerable children, through the development and evaluation of interventions that combine improved educational and economic opportunities with programs designed to encourage positive health behaviors. Dr. Dunbar has served as principal investigator on federally and privately funded research projects in Tanzania and Zimbabwe, with similar efforts expanding her work include adolescents in Oakland and San Francisco.
Dr. Dunbar received her M.P.H. and Dr.PH from the University of California, Berkeley, where she focused on international maternal and child health, and research design and policy evaluation. She was awarded the International AIDS Society Young Investigators award at the XIV International AIDS Conference in Barcelona in 2005, and a bronze medal at the 17th International Society for Sexually Transmitted Diseases Research in 2007 for her work in Zimbabwe. In addition, she consults with the World Health Organization on a special task force that reviews issues that intersect the fields of reproductive health and HIV, such as the use of hormonal contraception on HIV acquisition and disease progression.