Dr. Luseno has over 20 years of experience conducting research in the US and in a number of sub-Saharan African countries. Her academic training includes a PhD in public health (i.e., maternal and child health, and health behavior and education) from UNC Gillings School of Global Public Health. She also has a BSc and MSc in applied economics from Egerton University, Kenya, and University of Wisconsin at Madison, respectively.
Dr. Luseno has coordinated and directed several NIH- and CDC-funded community-based studies among marginalized and underserved youth and adults. These include randomized controlled trials (RCTs) to adapt and to determine the effectiveness and cost-effectiveness of HIV prevention interventions to reduce HIV risk behaviors, substance use, and victimization. She was the PI on a completed NIH-funded R21 study that examined adolescent HIV prevalence, use of HIV health related services, and barriers and facilitators to accessing care in Kenya, including among pregnant and parenting adolescents and young adults living with HIV.
She also served as key personnel on two completed NIH-funded RCTs in Kenya and Zimbabwe to test school support as HIV prevention among orphan adolescents and a supplement to the Zimbabwe RCT to examine cost-effectiveness of the intervention. Furthermore, she evaluated a large cash transfer program in Malawi and a PEPFAR-funded prevention of mother-to-child transmission of HIV program in Tanzania.
Currently, she is the Principal Investigator (PI) on an NIH-funded R01 grant being conducted in Kenya to examine ethical issues in the conduct of HIV research with adolescents and on an associated supplemental grant to examine ethical issues in the implementation of voluntary medical male circumcision (VMMC) as an HIV prevention strategy among adolescents. She is also the HIV lead on a study funded by the Office of Women’s Health (OWH) to enhance HIV and IPV screening, prevention, and response among at-risk women in Kentucky.