Meet Dr. Arash Alaei
Dr. Arash Alaei is currently serving as a faculty member at the department of health sciences and health care administration at California State University, Long Beach. He is the senior advisor for the Global Health Security, USAID office in the Republic of Tajikistan. He has an extensive experience to develop and lead multi and interdisciplinary research projects in the field of HIV, HCV, TB, MAT and reducing drug related harms; design, adapt, implement and evaluate HIV prevention, care and harm reduction innovations, and integrate HIV services into a primary health care (PHC) system. He is county PI of the NIH-NIDA grant ExMAT lead by Yale University in Tajikistan. He was a member of TRP Global Fund from 2017-2021.
Since 2016 he has been senior consultant and advisor for numbers of national and international organizations such as Tajikistan Ministry of Health, UNAIDS, UNICEF, WHO, PEPFAR, CDC and FAO. He wrote the global fund funding request and Tajikistan was funded $19 million to fight HIV 2017-2020. Dr. Alaei has experience of developing international collaborations between faculty members and students. He led groups of international experts to develop public health and medical care guidelines. He helped to expand the capacity of several AIDS centers and NGOs to implement and improve the quality of HIV test and treatment programs and evaluated the outcome of ART. He has years of experiences to integrate vertical medical care to the PHC services and developed the National Strategic Plans.
In order to increase access to higher education and remove language barriers, Dr. Alaei developed the Global Multilingual Online Initiative (GMOI), piloting an online education initiative in conflict zones for over 525 internally displaced medical students in Syria.
Dr. Alaei was associate vice provost for international education at SUNY-Albany and director of office for international education and research programs at the National Research Institute for TB and Lung Diseases, WHO/EMRO Collaborating Center. In those capacities, he developed a number of undergrad and graduate dual-diploma programs with international universities and several research collaboration and student exchange programs. He has received several awards such as:
2021 - National Medal of Excellence, provided by the Minister of Health of Tajikistan
2021 - The Physician of the Year of Tajikistan, selected by community and journalists
2018 - Institute of International Education - SRF Outstanding Scholar Award for exceptional academic work and commitment to students suffering under repression and conflict
2017 - Patroon Award, recognizing leaders who make Albany of New York a better place to live
2013 - Citizen of the University Award, University at Albany, SUNY, recognizing outstanding contributions to the Univeristy
2012 - Elizabeth Taylor Award, Inaugural award, in Recognition of Efforts to Advocate for Human Rights in the field of HIV presented by Actress Sharon Stone and sponsored by The Foundation for AIDS Research and the International AIDS Society
2011 - Leadership in Health and Human Rights, Inaugural award, Pan-American Health Organization/World Health Organization
2011 - Jonathan Mann Award for Global Health and Human Rights, from Global Health Council
2009 - Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award, New York Academy of Science
