Southern Comfort

Murph Fuentes, HANC Project Coordinator
April 10 - 12, 2025, Atlanta, GA

Held in Atlanta, Georgia, the 2025 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit offered a safe space to release, reconnect, and resist. Team HANC showed up and showed out. HANC Director Russell Campbell was joined by Deputy Director Brian Minalga, Legacy Project Manager Cat Banobi, and HANC Project Coordinator Murph Fuentes. HANC didn’t just attend; we came into community and were afforded the opportunity to share and collaborate.

A lot can change in a year. We’ve all felt the tremors, some harder-hitting than others. But it behooves us to celebrate the good. In times like these, joy is an act of resistance. Personally, the Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit illustrates much growth. Cat Banobi and I started at HANC a little over a year ago. One of our first assignments was to attend the 2024 Biomedical HIV Prevention Summit together. Like baby birds we weaved through the crowds, overwhelmed and in awe of all the amazing work and people. Now, a year later, we both returned as presenters.  

And we were embraced. By an incredible community of scientists, researchers, advocates, and everything in between. We caught up with longtime HANC collaborator Jim Pickett as he presented his work on the PrEP 4 Teens campaign based in Chicago. Moises Agosto of NMAC gave big hugs and urged us to submit, submit, submit to the upcoming USCHA conference in Washington, DC. HANC Deputy Director Brian Minalga walked the summit in their finest purple fur, and neither they nor HANC Director Russell Campbell could walk the halls without being recognized, appreciated, and held.

This is the warm comfort of knowing we are doing the right work with the right people. While I was preoccupied with the discomfort of presenting work to a large audience, I forgot the sheer joy of good work. Along with Russell Campbell, and Drs. Lance Okeke and Kenric Ware, I presented Visualizing Disparities with the Interactive U.S. Research Desert Map (view the map). A year from conception to completion, this tool was embraced with open arms. It’s a career milestone for me – I designed for the greater good, and now this resource can be widely shared and utilized to address gaps and disparities. We can take comfort that we do good work.

And we take comfort that the community supports us, and this work. Cat Banobi, with Jimmy Gibbs and Clifford Castleberry, representing HANC’s Minority Serving Institution Working Group, presented their abstract Translating Efficacy into Effectiveness: a PrEP Policy for HBCUs. Soliciting feedback from the attendees, an engaging discussion resulted, highlighting that people are invested in this work and will continue to be. Under Cat’s leadership the group’s steadfast work will bring real world guidance for increasing PrEP access at Historically Black Colleges and Universities.