2021 Scholars
Ang
Cristian
Danny
Del
Dominic
Enrique
Ethan
Grant
K
Martez
Shakira
Cristian Eduardo - He/Him
Cristian Eduardo is an advocate, speaker and educator for anti-trafficking initiatives as well as immigrant and LGBTQ+ rights. He is a survivor of international and domestic sex and labor trafficking, a Mexican immigrant, a member of the LGBTQ+ community, and a thriving individual living with HIV. Cristian is also someone who speaks openly about the mental health challenges he has faced that frequently result from trauma. Although these are all parts of him, Cristian is a whole person who cannot be defined by any of the adversities he has experienced. Cristian Eduardo is also a student who is science and engineering oriented. Cristian Eduardo's inspiration for his social justice work is to give insight that victims always remain human beings.
New York, NY – The City College of New York - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
Enrique Hernandez - He/Him
Enrique graduated from Borough Manhattan Community College with an Associate degree in Secondary Education, and he is currently seeking a bachelor’s degree in Secondary Education at Lehman College. Enrique has been advocating for HIV awareness for youth ages 13- 25 by participating as a youth leader at The LGBTQ Center in downtown New York. He is looking to take his educational experience to create curricula that incorporates HIV and LGBTQ+ issues with social justice for students of various backgrounds. One of his future goals is to become a superintendent and eventual a political advocate for education reform.
New York, NY – Lehman College - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
Shakira J. Gonzalez Hernandez - She/Her
Shakira Gonzalez, es una mujer Transgénero, estudiante de segundo año de Bachillerato en Ciencias Sociales con una Concentración en Trabajo Social en la Universidad Ana G. Méndez Recinto de Cupey en Puerto Rico. Actualmente trabaja con la comunidad Transgénero que viven con VIH, trabaja voluntariamente con personas Deambulante y con adición a sustancias contralada, en un Centro Intermedio, a la cual se Incorporaba Terapias tales como, Educativas, Ocupacional, Recreativa, Espiritual, Grupales, Individuales y familiar. También trabaja en varias organizaciones haciendo enlaces para la comunidad Transgénero y LBG, ayudando en necesidades básicas, Asistencia Nutricional, estudios, Vivienda Pública, HOPWA entre otros servicios. Este esfuerzo empezó antes de los Huracanes Irma y María, Terremotos y actualmente en la Pandemia del Covid-19.
San Juan, PR – Universidad Ana G. Méndez - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
Del Likins - They/Them
Del Likins has spent the last decade embracing the roles of love, embodiment, and critical theory in individual and systemic healing. They are currently pursuing a master’s degree in Marriage, Couple, and Family Therapy (MCFT). Del is the descendent of white (now middle-class) settlers, is transgender, invisibly disabled, and fat.
Del is a student of Buddhist anti-racist teachers, and of human development in Somatic, Experiential, and Liberation psychologies. Their academic life in MCFT centers around the socializations of power, especially white folks’ relationship to supremacy. They envision a clinical practice that utilizes Experiential group therapy to support folks of all backgrounds healing intra-personal harm created through homo/transphobia, ableism, and white supremacy. Del believes deeply that healing the violence we do to ourselves through these systems is primary and foundational to effective interpersonal and institutional deconstruction.
Portland, OR – Lewis & Clark College - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
Ang Quiroz - He/They
Ang is a queer, nonbinary, and Latinx scholar entering UCLA’s MPH, Community Health Sciences program. They attended UC Davis for undergrad where they studied Psychology and Gender Studies and became involved with UCD’s LGBTQIA+ Resource Center and Health Education and Promotion department. The programming they did in these spaces centered on HIV Education, queer sex education, and LGBTQ identity development introduced them to public health and greatly influenced their desire to continue working with LGBTQ+ and poz communities.
Riverside, CA - University of California Los Angeles - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
Full-Time Medical Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
Seattle, WA - Two-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($7,000)
K Anderson - K/They/Them
K is a writer, archivist, and second-year graduate student in the American Studies MA program and Sexuality Studies graduate certificate program at Arizona State University. They received their Bachelor of Arts in Africana Studies and Political Science from DePauw University. Broadly, they write about Black sexual economies, BDSM and kink, and pornography.
Their current research reads Black gay pornography and R&B music from the 1990s and early 2000s to theorize the digital transformations of the adult entertainment and music industries during this technological era and how Black porn stars and artists teased and troubled these transformations in their musical and pornographic performances.
Tempe, AZ - Arizona State University - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Grant Gutierrez - He/Him
Grant Gutierrez is in the deep end of a personal-political love affair with rivers. His childhood in the foothills of the American River watershed has shaped how he shows-up for his work and his communities: with an open heart, constant curiosity, and a desire to be of service. Over the past ten years, he has worked alongside different vibrant communities reclaiming their rivers – from anti-dam social movements in Chile, to watershed council politics in his hometown, and now, where he calls home in Puget Sound.
He is finishing his Ph.D. in Dartmouth College’s Graduate Program in Ecology, Evolution, Environment & Society (EEES). His dissertation explores how different communities navigate living in the wake of environmental disaster along the banks of the Duwamish and Skagit Rivers. Trained as an environmental anthropologist, he believes that the stories we tell – and how we tell them – are intimately important to how we do the work of environmental justice.
Seattle, WA - Dartmouth College - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Ethan Hawes - They/Them
Ethan Hawes is a Psychology student at Eastern Kentucky University. When not studying or working in the recovery field, Hawes pursues various advocacy projects with a focus on building equity for people who use drugs and folks living with HIV. As a person in recovery from substance use disorder and trauma, Hawes strives to bring the best of lived experience into advocacy work.
Eastern Kentucky University - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Dominic Min-Tran - He/Him
Dominic Min-Tran is a first-year MD student at the University of Washington School of Medicine (UWSOM). He has been involved in research identifying and assessing administrative barriers to covering PrEP costs at a safety-net clinic in Seattle, Washington. Dominic received his bachelor’s degree in Bioengineering at the University of Washington in 2016. Since then, Dominic has spent time being with and in community assisting with STI/HIV test scheduling and referrals, exploring gender identity and expression with youth, and providing rapid HIV testing at community-based organizations.
Seattle, WA – University of Washington - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Martez Smith - He/Him
Martez is a doctoral candidate in Nursing and Health Science at the University of Rochester School of Nursing. He holds a Bachelor of Social Work from Ohio State University and a Master of Social Work from Long Island University Brooklyn. His research interests include addressing racial, sexual and gender minority health disparities through community-driven, asset-based interventions. In addition to conducting research, Martez works alongside a nationwide cadre of activists, organizing for social justice with the Keeping Ballroom Community Alive Network (KBCAN), which he co-founded in 2015.
Brooklyn, NY - University of Rochester - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Full-Time Engineering Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
Guam, USA - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Full-Time Communications Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
Las Vegas, NV - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Full-Time Social Work Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
Portland, OR - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Full-Time Public Health Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
Washington, D.C. - One-Year Full-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($3,500)
Danny Burke - He/They
Danny Burke is a Master of Business Administration candidate with a certificate focus in marketing from Claremont Graduate University Drucker School of Management. Danny received his BA in Organizational Behavior Studies from Pitzer College and an AA degree in Behavioral Sciences from San Bernardino Valley College. He currently works in the advertising industry and is most interested in investigating the use of behavioral technologies, like media, and its use in swaying consumer/human behavior and its influence on sociocultural development.
Portland, OR - Claremont Graduate University - One-Year Part-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($1,500)
Part-Time Health Education Student
Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.
San Francisco, CA - One-Year Part-Time 2021 HIV League Scholar ($1,500)