Geri Donenberg PhD

Dr. Geri Donenberg, PhD is a Director at the University of Illinois at Chicago. Dr. Geri Donenberg received her Bachelor's Degree in Psychology and Political Science at the University of Michigan and her Master of Arts and Doctoral Degree in clinical psychology from UCLA. She completed her psychology internship at the UCLA Neuropsychiatric Institute and was a recently Fulbright Scholar in South Africa.

Dr. Donenberg directs the Community Outreach Intervention Projects (COIP) and the Healthy Youths Program (HYP) at the University of Illinois at Chicago. COIP addresses HIV/AIDS among substance users by operating from five storefronts and mobile units in Chicago. COIP is based on the Indigenous Leader Outreach Model and provides numerous services, including street outreach, diabetes, HCV, and blood pressure screenings, counseling and testing for HIV/AIDS, syphilis, and other infectious diseases associated with substance use, case management for persons living with or at high risk for HIV infection, syringe exchange, drug abuse, and risk reduction counseling, support groups, education, and projects that enhance linkages to care for HIV-positive men and women exiting jail. HYP includes a number of HIV/AIDS risk and prevention studies for families and youth with mental health problems, teens involved in the juvenile justice system, and international settings. Dr. Donenberg's research focuses on understanding the underlying mechanisms of risky sexual behavior and substance use among youth and designing specially targeted interventions to prevent HIV transmission. She supervises and mentors psychology interns, postdoctoral fellows, and junior faculty, is a fellow of the Executive Leadership in Academic Medicine (ELAM) program and a licensed clinical psychologist, and she has served on numerous review panels for the National Institutes of Health and the CDC since 1998.