Perry N. Halkitis, PhD, MS, MPH (he/him/his)
Biography
Perry N Halkitis, Ph.D., M.S., M.P.H., is dean, Hunterdon Professor of Public Health & Health Equity, and Distinguished Professor of Biostatistics and Epidemiology at the Rutgers School of Public Health. He is also the founder and director of the Center for Health, Identity, Behavior & Prevention Studies (CHIBPS) and a primary member of the Rutgers Cancer Institute of New Jersey and the Global Health Institute.
Throughout his career, Dr. Halkitis has been on the forefront of fighting for the rights of those infected with and affected by HIV, as well as being an outspoken advocate for the rights and health of the LGBTQ+ population. Dr. Halkitis is actively involved in all aspects of community building and empowerment through the dissemination and translation of the innovative, timely, and valuable public health research that he and his teams at Rutgers and CHIBPS undertake.
Dr. Halkitis is the author of the 2019 book, Out in Time: The Public Lives of Gay Men from Stonewall to the Queer Generation. His 2013 book, The AIDS Generation: Stories of Survival and Resilience, is a 2014 Lambda Literary Award nominee. Both books received the American Psychological Association Distinguished Book Award in LGBT Psychology. Dr. Halkitis is also the author of Methamphetamine Addiction: Biological Foundations, Psychological Factors, and Social Consequences, and lead editor of two additional books. He has authored some 300 peer-reviewed academic manuscripts and also actively disseminates knowledge to mainstream media, appearing frequently on television, radio, print, and podcasts. He has been the Editor in Chief of Behavioral Medicine since 2013 and is the Founding Editor in Chief of Annals of LGBTQ Public and Population Health, which published its first issue in 2020.
Dr. Halkitis has received numerous awards from both professional and community-based organizations. He is an elected a fellow of The New York Academy of Medicine, The Society of Behavioral Medicine, The American Epidemiological Society, The European Academy of Translational Medicine, the College of Physicians of Philadelphia, and in four divisions of the American Psychological Association. He serves on the Board of Directors of the Association for School and Programs of Public Health (as chair in 2023-24) and the Hyacinth Foundation. He also serves on the advisory boards of both the New Jersey Public Health Advisory Committee and the Behavioral Risk Factor Survey Advisory Committee, the Tyler Clementi Center, and Safehouse, and is a Commissioner on Newark Mayor’s LGBT Advisory Committee. He previously served on the boards of Body Positive, GMHC, the Generations Project, the HIV League, the New Jersey Public Health Association, and the New York State Public Health Association.
Dr. Halkitis holds degrees in epidemiology, psychology, applied statistics, and education.
Research Interests
For three decades, the focus of his research has been on the emergence, prevention, and treatment of infectious diseases primarily in sexual, gender, and/or racial and ethnic minority populations. His program of study has sought to disentangle the biological, behavioral, psychosocial, and structural mechanisms that predispose populations to these infectious diseases, and the synergies of infectious disease with mental health burden including drug abuse.