Lisa Hightow-Weidman, MD, MPH
About
Dr. Lisa B. Hightow-Weidman is a professor of medicine and of health behavior at UNC-Chapel Hill. She completed her medical school training at the University of Virginia and became board certified in internal medicine in 2001 after completing three years of residency training at Stanford University. Dr. Hightow-Weidman also completed three years of fellowship training in infectious diseases at UNC-Chapel Hill. In 2004, she earned a Masters of Public Health degree in epidemiology from the UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health.
She has been directly involved with the management of HIV-infected and at-risk adolescents and adults at UNC-Chapel Hill since 2001. Dr. Hightow-Weidman is an expert on mHealth, social media, and the utilization and evaluation of technology-based interventions to address the HIV Care Continuum for youth and young adults, particularly among young men who have sex with men.
Lisa Hightow-Weidman in the Gillings News
Honors and Awards
John Bartlett Innovation in Research Award
2016, North Carolina Community AIDS Fund
Fellows Travel Award
2004, Retrovirus Conference
Fellows Travel Award
2003, IDSA Conference
Fellows Travel Award
2003, Retrovirus Conference
Member
1997, Alpha Omega Alpha Medical Honor Society
Member
Phi Beta Kappa
Teaching Interests
Dr. Hightow-Weidman teachers a 2-week mHealth implementation science course for students in South Africa.
Research Activities
- mHealth
- Social media
- Utilization and evaluation of technology-based interventions to address the HIV Care Continuum for youth and young adults, particularly among young men who have sex with men.
- Use of novel game-based elements and social networking components
Service Activities
All Dr. Hightow-Weidman's research projects have involved mentees. As a result, she is aware of the importance of goal setting, periodic evaluation, and frequent communication between mentors and mentees. She has mentored more than 20 medical, graduate and postgraduate students, as well as new faculty. She has served and continues to serve on grant review panels for the NIH and CDC, and is thus in a strong position to continue mentoring in research and grantsmanship.
Practice Activities
Her primary faculty clinical focus dovetails nicely with her research interests and demonstrates her commitment to HIV-infected men who have sex with men (MSM). She provides clinical care one day a week within the UNC Infectious Diseases Clinic, where she specializes in the care of HIV-infected young ethnic/minority MSM. In this capacity, she is able to share with medical students, fellows and physician extenders her knowledge of the cultural and developmental issues unique to this population, members of which are disproportionately affected and infected by the HIV virus.
Further, this clinic provides a platform on which Dr. Hightow-Weidman's clinical research portfolio is structured. She is dedicated to trying to improve the care provided to HIV-infected MSM of color as well as to preventing further transmission of HIV among these men in North Carolina. She currently is the associate medical director of the Infectious Diseases Clinic at UNC, and she assists with ensuring Ryan White funding to be able to provide quality care to her patients.
