Kristi E Gamarel, PhD, EdM (she/her)

• PhD, Graduate Center of the City University of New York, 2014
• EdM, Teacher's College Columbia University, 2009
• BA, Bard College, 2001

Research Interests:

LGBTQ+ Health, Transgender Health, Violence, Stigma, Intersectionality, CBPR, community-engaged interventions, HIV prevention, mental health, substance use, healthcare access

Gamarel's research focuses on addressing inequities among LGBTQ+ communities. She is founding member of the "Love Her Collective" which is a community-academic partnership with the Trans Sistas of Color Project. Through qualitative research, survey research, and intervention studies, the "Love Her Collective" is engaged in a number of research projects designed to understand and address the needs of trans women of color. She also works closely with her mentees on the development of their independent programs of research, which are often focused on understanding the structural drivers of inequities among trans communities.

Research Projects:

Gamarel current research projects as part of Principal Investigator/Protocol Chair team includes the following projects:

It Takes Two (T2): This study seeks to test the efficacy of a couples-based HIV prevention designed with transgender women and their partners. The pilot study (Couples HIV Intervention Program, CHIP) that led to T2 was the first intervention designed for trans individuals that was included the CDC’s Compendium of Evidence-Based Intervention and Best Practices for HIV Prevention (R01MH115765)

Kickin’ it with the Gurlz: Funding through two separate grants, this study seeks to develop and evaluate the feasibility and acceptability of an HIV status-neutral multicomponent intervention designed to address violence and trauma. This intervention was designed in partnership with the Trans Sistas of Color Project and includes safety and gender affirmation needs screening, one-on-one peer navigation sessions, and peer-delivered group sessions focused on radical self-care and healing from trauma (R21MH121974, R21MH123218).

Breaking Barriers to Legal Gender Affirmation: This CBPR project seeks to address legal barriers to legal gender affirmation among trans women of color through the development and evaluation of medical-legal partnership implemented at Corktown Health Center. This project is designed by Julisa Abad who is Fair Michigan Justice Project’s Director of Transgender Advocacy and Outreach and the founder of the Transgender Name Change Clinic, which provides assistance to low income trans individuals in Michigan to get assistance from an attorney while filling out forms for free. This project is also working to change policies that impede trans individuals in Michigan from obtaining legal gender affirmation (OVPR Anti-Racism Internal Grant).

Strengthening Community Responses to Economic Vulnerability (SeCuRE): This study seeks to adapt and assess the feasibility and acceptability of an HIV status-neutral microeconomic intervention designed in partnership with the Trans Sistas of Color Project. Based on the Love Her Collective’s formative work, the SeCuRE intervention builds on the Trans Sistas of Color Project’s existing emergency assistance program and Julisa Abad’s Transgender Name Change Clinic. The additional microeconomic components include promising aspects of Dr. Larissa Jennings Mayo-Wilson’s EMERGE intervention, specifically economic empowerment educational group sessions, mentorship, and an unconditional grant of $1,200 for use towards acquiring self-led or formal employment (R34MH130207).

Let’s Be: This project is designed to test the effectiveness and implementation factors of an HIV-status neutral multi-level intervention designed with trans women of color at Corktown Health Center in Detroit and Callen-Lorde in New York City. The intervention components include promising aspects of the Healthy Divas, Sheroes, and Kickin’ it with the Gurlz interventions (R01MH129285).

Legal, Economic, and Affirming Peer Support (LEAP): Based on the Love Her Collective’s formative work, the ATN 167 protocol seeks to test the effectiveness and implementation factors of an HIV status-neutral intervention designed to address social determinants of HIV, including economic vulnerability, health-harming legal needs, and unmet gender affirmation needs with transgender, nonbinary, and gender diverse youth and young adults of color in 6 sites across the U.S (ATN UM2HD111102 Sub-Project ID  6975).

Triggered: This pilot project seeks to explore the multi-level factors that give rise to gun violence exposure among LGBTQ+ youth and young adults of color in Detroit, Michigan (University of Michigan Institute for Firearm Injury Prevention, Injury Prevention Center, and Public Health IDEAS). 

Additional Information

Gamarel is also engaged in dissemination and implementation science with a specific focus on peer-delivered and digital health interventions in community health settings. She co-created and currently directs the ATN Communication-Dissemination Hub, which is focused on expediting the gap between research, practice, and policy and ensuring youth engagement across the ATN.

Gamarel also collaborates on projects focused on addressing barriers to mental health and cancer screening and affirming services with trans communities, as well as cohort studies designed to understand the multi-level drivers of health inequities among LGBTQ+ communities of color.

Google Scholar: https://scholar.google.com/citations?user=TVPNlq8AAAAJandhl=enandoi=ao 

PubMed: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/?term=Gamarel 

Email: kgamarel@umich.edu 
Office: 734-647-3178
Address: 2822 SPH I
1415 Washington Heights
Ann Arbor, MI 48109

For media inquiries: sph.media@umich.edu