Nabila El-Bassel

Dr. El-Bassel is the Willma and Albert Musher Professor of Social Work at the Columbia University School of Social Work, and Director of the Social Intervention Group. This group was established in 1990 as a multi-disciplinary center focusing on developing and testing effective prevention and intervention approaches to HIV, drug use and gender–based violence, and disseminating them to local, national and global communities.

Dr. El-Bassel was recently awarded the Pillar of Excellence Award in Research for her 30 years of scientific research in HIV, addiction and intimate partner violence.

Dr. El-Bassel is also the Director of the Columbia University Global Health Research Center of Central Asia, a team of faculty, scientists, researchers and students in both New York and Central Asia who are committed to advancing solutions to health and social issues in Central Asia through research, education, training and policy and dissemination. She mentors HIV research scientists from Central Asia.

Dr. El-Bassel studies the intersecting epidemics of HIV and violence against women and has designed HIV interventions that address these co-occurring problems with significant scientific contributions in gender-based HIV prevention for women. She has published extensively on HIV behavioral prevention science and on the co-occurring problems of HIV, gender-based violence and substance use. She has designed and tested a number of multilevel intervention and prevention models for women, men and couples in different settings such as drug treatment and harm reduction programs, primary care and criminal justice settings.

Dr. El-Bassel has been funded extensively by the National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Institute of Mental Health. She has also been funded by the National Institute of Health to train underrepresented faculty and research scientists on the science of HIV intervention and prevention, and provides significant national and international leadership to the global HIV and health agenda.