Among Mayor-Elect Michelle Wu’s first announcements of who she’ll appoint to cabinet-level positions is Dr. Bisola Ojikutu, current executive director of the Boston Health Commission. Wu said in a statement that Ojikutu’s role would expand in “leading the city’s broader public health, efforts including response to the COVID-19 pandemic.”
Ojikutu is a 2014 recipient of AIDS Action Committee’s Hero in Action Award, which “recognizes those who have made significant contributions in the movement to end the transmission of HIV.”
More recently, in 2018, she delivered the keynote address at AAC’s annual Bayard Rustin Breakfast, which recognizes the role of LGBT people from communities of color in the fight against the AIDS epidemic.
Ojikutu is a Harvard Medical School faculty member, associate physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital and senior advisor at John Snow Research and Training Institute. As AAC introduced her before the Rustin Breakfast, she ‘maintains an active clinical practice focusing on the treatment of HIV, primary care and general infectious diseases. She has also worked throughout sub Saharan Africa developing and evaluating models of care for people living with HIV.
“‘Her research is focused on impact that social determinants of health such as poverty, discrimination, and immigration policy have on HIV transmission, clinical outcomes, and barriers to accessing care'” — all important issues for the LGBTQ community.
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