MENTAL HEALTH TRAINING PROGRAM

Program Home | Faculty and Staff | Training | Journal Articles | Additional Resources

Faculty

Julie A. Baldwin, Ph.D., Professor at the University of South Florida, serves as the Program Coordinator of the Mental Health Training Program of the F/C AETC. Dr. Baldwin earned her doctorate in Behavioral Sciences and Health Education in 1991 from the Johns Hopkins University School of Hygiene and Public Health. She joined the faculty at USF in the College of Public Health, Department of Community and Family Health in December of 2004. She teaches courses on health disparities, cultural competence, social and behavioral aspects of public health, program planning and evaluation. She also serves as the Co-Principal Investigator of the Research Methods and Evaluation Unit of the Florida Prevention Research Center (FPRC). From 1994-2004, Dr. Baldwin was a Professor of Health Promotion at Northern Arizona University, with a joint appointment in the Mel and Enid Zuckerman Arizona College of Public Health. Her primary research has focused on utilizing community-based participatory approaches to study aspects of alcohol and drug abuse among American Indian populations, applying psychosocial models of behavioral change to working with drug users, and evaluating the efficacy of HIV/AIDS prevention programs for youth and families. From 2002-2004 she was awarded an Interdisciplinary Faculty Fellowship from HRSA-AMERSA-SAMHSA/CSAT to improve health professional education in substance abuse screening, assessment, intervention, and referral practices. At the conclusion of the fellowship, Dr. Baldwin was recognized as a Faculty Scholar of the AMERSA Mainstream Academy.

Frank Fernandez, M.D., received his degree from Tuft's University School of Medicine and completed his psychiatry training at the Massachusetts General Hospital. Nationally, Dr. Fernandez is a member of the American Psychiatric Association's Commission on AIDS and serves on the Steering Committee of the American Psychiatric Association's-CMHS funded AIDS Education Project. He serves on the Executive Council of the Association for Medicine and Psychiatry and the American Society of Hispanic Psychiatry. He is also on the Editorial Boards of AIDS and Behavior and Medicine and Psychiatry. He has served on the American College of Psychiatrists PRITE Editorial Board since 1995 and was Editor-in-Chief from 2000-2005. Presently, Dr. Fernandez serves as a member of the Board of Regents for the American College of Psychiatrists. At the University of South Florida (USF), he is a member of the faculty and clinical core for the Florida/Caribbean AIDS Education Training Center (F/C AETC). Prior to serving as Chair of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the University of South Florida, from 1997-2002 Dr. Fernandez was the Chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Loyola University Chicago, Stritch School of Medicine.

Martha Friedrich, Ph.D., Associate Director and Evaluator of the F/C AETC, is the F/C AETC’s expert on adult learning theory and technology. Dr. Friedrich, a licensed psychologist, assists with the Neuropsychiatry training, as well as oversees any specialized data collection and analysis for this project. As the Associate Director of the F/C AETC, Dr. Friedrich is responsible for the planning, design, and implementation of the region-wide AETC evaluation. Dr. Friedrich has worked with the AETC since its beginning in 1988. In the early years, she was the primary trainer on issues of mental health and neuropsychological effects of HIV. She has also worked in private practice as a clinical neuropsychologist.

Michael D. Knox, Ph.D., is the Principal Investigator and Director of the F/C AETC. He earned his doctorate in psychology in 1974 from The University of Michigan. He joined the USF faculty in 1986. Dr. Knox, a licensed clinical psychologist, is Distinguished Professor of Mental Health Law and Policy at USF’s Florida Mental Health Institute. He holds joint appointments as Professor of Medicine in the Department of Internal Medicine, and Distinguished Professor of Global Health in the College of Public Health. His faculty duties include HIV-related research and teaching, with special expertise in Ethics and HIV/AIDS. Dr. Knox is also the founder and Director of the USF Center for HIV Education and Research. In 2004 he was Co-Chair of the American Foundation for AIDS Research’s (AMFAR) 16th National HIV/AIDS Update Conference. Professor Knox has published and presented widely on the topic of HIV/AIDS. His work has been featured on the front covers of the journal AIDS Patient Care and NIH News & Features, a publication of the National Institutes of Health. He is the senior editor and contributor to HIV and Community Mental Healthcare, a book published in 1998 by The Johns Hopkins University Press. Dr. Knox is a Fellow of the American Psychological Association and the American Psychological Society.

Orlando L. Ruano, D.O., received his degree from Nova Southeastern University, College of Osteopathic Medicine in 1997. Dr. Ruano also obtained his training in Family Medicine (Board Certified, 2001-2008) and more recently Psychiatry (Board Eligible). Since July 2004, he has been an Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the University of South Florida, College of Medicine. From October 2002-June 2004, he served as a Psychiatrist at the Veterans’ Administration Medical Center in Bay Pines, Florida. Through his work, he has been exposed to a variety of settings in which HIV infected patients have manifested a broad spectrum of complications. These scenarios have ranged from HIV infected mothers and infants to the dementia secondary to HIV infection. Furthermore, he has had the opportunity to train in different geographical areas of the country where he has been exposed to a variety of cultures and broad points of view.

Carlos Santana, M.D., Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at the University of South Florida, College of Medicine, received his M.D. from the Universidad Autonoma de Santo Domingo in the Dominican Republic. He completed residencies in Psychiatry at the University of London and the University of South Florida. Dr. Santana is currently Chief of Outpatient Services at the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Medicine at USF. He is also the Medical Director of the Methadone Program at the Drug Abuse Comprehensive and Coordinating Office (DACCO), with responsibilities including the evaluation of medical and psychological needs of HIV-positive patients, and supervision of therapists who provide counseling services for the HIV population. He is a faculty trainer for the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) in the Buprenorphine Certification Course and has lectured at the USF Resident Training Program on the topic of HIV in psychiatric co-morbidity including neuropsychiatric aspects of HIV. Dr. Santana is also the principle author of the book chapter “Sleep and HIV Infection.” He has been involved in direct clinical care of HIV patients and oversaw the Maudsley Hospital while training at the Institute of Psychiatry, University of London. He has also been a contributor to the Spanish version of the Mini International Neuropsychiatric Interview (M.I.N.I.).

---

| Home | Faculty | Training | Publications | Links | Map |
Florida/Caribbean AETC | Perinatal HIV Transmission Prevention Project
| HIV Care Link Newsletter | Webmaster | Join our Mailing List |