Dr. Kathryn (Katie) Risher joined the faculty of the Penn State College of Medicine in October 2022. Her research focuses on HIV and infectious disease epidemiology, and has largely been conducted in eastern and southern Africa and the US. Her work has primarily focused on better understanding what is driving HIV incidence and new infections through a variety of topic areas including sexual behavior and networks, HIV recency assays, the HIV care continuum, and "key populations" (populations that are at increased risk of HIV acquisition but frequently lack access to HIV services). Dr. Risher's global work has been in collaboration with UNAIDS and the ALPHA Network, a consortium of population-based longitudinal studies collecting data on HIV in eastern and southern Africa. Domestically, she collaborates with the CONNECT lab at Northwestern University on work simulating HIV transmission and sexual networks in Chicago among racial and sexual minorities.