Julie Davids is a Rhode Island-based organizer, research advocate and policy advocate. Currently, she is Senior Consultant at the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project (CHAMP), coordinating the HIV Prevention Justice Alliance and assisting with the Prevention Research Advocacy Working Group.
She also co-chairs the Federal AIDS
Policy Partnership (FAPP) and is an External Expert on the Strategic
Working Group (SWG) of the Division of AIDS at NIAID.
She learned the ropes of AIDS activism from the leaders of ACT UP Philadelphia in the first-wave HIV/AIDS direct action protest movement. During that time, she worked on campaigns for needle exchange, health care access, research issues, and the rights of people of all genders. She served on the Community Constituency Group (CCG) of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG), where she sat on the Perinatal Transmission Committee.
She co-founded Project TEACH (Treatment Education Activists Combating HIV), which provides activist and leadership training for people living with HIV at Philadelphia FIGHT, and served as the first community organizer for Health GAP, an activist group dedicated to eliminating barriers to access to HIV/AIDS treatment around the world.
David Ernesto Munar is a local and national leader for sound public policy on HIV/AIDS. A person living with HIV, Munar joined the staff of the AIDS Foundation of Chicago in 1991 and is currently the group's Vice President. He serves on the board of directors of the Pediatric AIDS Chicago Prevention Initiative and the AIDS Action Council, where he chairs its Policy Committee. He is active on several federal advisory committees with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the Health Resources and Services Administration, and the National Institute on Allergies and Infectious Diseases. In 2007, Munar worked with other AIDS advocacy leaders to form the Campaign for a National AIDS Strategy, and he remains actively involved with its Coordinating Committee. This year, he worked with the Community HIV/AIDS Mobilization Project and SisterLove to launch the Prevention Justice Alliance, which advocates for cross-disciplinary responses to the social and structural factors amplifying HIV-related health disparities in the U.S. Munar is bicultural, bilingual and a first-generation Colombian-American. He received his B.A. from Northwestern University.
There were tantalizing hints at this week’s HIV prevention conference that CDC may be ready to seek significant changes in federal prevention policy and programs.
The National HIV Prevention Conference opens at a time when healthcare reform and the National HIV/AIDS Strategy are seen as potential game-changers.
