Meet the SPOTS team

In Thailand and Napier born and raised, now I spend the most of my days as a PhD candidate at the University of Auckland, broadly focusing on the blood donation aspect of SPOTS. As a health psychologist researcher, I have worked across Aotearoa’s HIV sector (Body Positive Inc. and Positive Women) and have been involved in HIV research projects (Aotearoa NZ PLHIV Stigma Index) since 2018. I also have been teaching research methods and statistics to psychology and public health students since 2016 at the Universtiy of Auckland.

I am excited to finally see SPOTS come to fruition. Having watched the project develop over the years, I have the utmost confidence that SPOTS will be delivering impactful research outputs that will greatly benefit our community!

Kia ora! I’m one of the Research Assistants on SPOTS and have been involved with the project since 2021. I worked initially as a Fieldwork Coordinator, then completed my MPH using SPOTS data and am now continuing with data analysis and report writing. I share my time on SPOTS with Burnett Foundation Aotearoa where I’m a Research Officer.

My current areas of research include PrEP and HIV and STI prevention more broadly. My thesis focused on PrEP and specifically whether there are disparities in engagement by different behavioural or demographic factors. I’m passionate about what we can achieve with SPOTS and excited that we have the opportunity to inform great health policy, responsive services, and provide sound evidence to decision-makers about our communities.

Kia ora, I am the quantitative data research fellow for the SPOTS Team. I organise the data that our communities have trusted us with and enable it to tell our stories. I’m based at the University of Auckland School of Population Health trained in epidemiology and public health. I studied at Imperial College London and the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine before undertaking my PhD at the University of Auckland. My expertise is in HIV and sexual health of men who have sex with men, vaccine-preventable disease, health policy, and epidemiology. My drive is to use our data to advocate and achieve health equity for our Rainbow Communities in Aotearoa NZ.

Kia Ora, Bula Vinaka, Namaste!

I am a Research Assistant with the amazing SPOTS team based at the University of Auckland Grafton Campus, exploring the acceptability of dried blood spots as a biospecimen collection tool among the Māori MSM/Takatāpui population.

My background is varied with a mix of clinical medicine, population health, academic teaching and research, and project management experiences across the Pacific. I am currently pursuing a doctoral degree investigating the unmet needs of home oxygen in Fiji, which is where I hail from. I am pleased to be given the opportunity to explore indigenous perspectives.

I am honoured to have the opportunity to contribute to research in the LGBTQIA+ and sexual health space. I am the post-doctoral qualitative research fellow for the SPOTs team. I analyse qualitative data to understand better the views of gbMSM toward blood donation and the current NZBS MSM-deferral policy.

My expertise is in the philosophy of language. In my PhD, I examined stigma in health promotion. Drawing on psychological and sociological accounts, I developed a theory of stigmatising speech acts and discussed its implications for gay men and blood donation.

I am the Head of Policy, Advocacy and Science at Burnett Foundation Aotearoa, and lead a programme of work advocating for Aotearoa New Zealand’s HIV response to be evidence-led and informed by community voices. Having SPOTS is essential in order to understand patterns of behaviour among at-risk populations, including examining where inequities exist and what could be driving them. My background is a mixture of government policy, HIV and COVID-19 research, the Stigma Index, and HIV outreach and testing. My PhD is on the HIV epidemic in the Philippines through the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society.

Kia ora! I’ve been in the New Zealand AIDS Foundation’s Marketing team for nearly 7 years, and am now working remotely on the marketing for SPOTS from Arizona.

I’m excited to see how the data gathered from SPOTS is used to build towards a more equitable health system for Aotearoa’s Rainbow community. This data will be incredibly valuable for organisations like NZAF to really understand where the community is at with sexual health and HIV prevention, so they can design programs with the best evidence at hand. In particular this is an amazing opportunity to gather data that can build towards better health outcomes for our Takatāpui and trans and gender-diverse communities.

I'm privileged to be part of this wider team of passionate peeps, coming from a background in health, and in many forms and iterations, and landing in a place of seeking equitable health outcomes for māori and takatāpui māori with an aim to structure some reforms to reflect the many nuances of diversity in Aotearoa. I've recently come on board at Te Whariki Takapou and part of a wider team in rewriting the HIV Transmission Strategy which feeds into the STBBI Strategy at Ministry of Health.

Currently heading the Iwi Led Response in partnership with Lakes DHB within Ngāti Tuwharetoa ancestral boundaries, making a noise and creating some organised havoc in seeing the dreams and vision of iwi māori in the area become realised in a contextualised, modern day format. My passion in this field continues and will always see me fight for access rights and responsibility adherence of Te Tiriti o Waitangi Partnerships. I'm glad to be a part of the SPOTS study to see health related information and practice become one with tikanga Māori and the appropriateness and relevance to iwi māori.

(Collaborator until 2022)

Kia ora, ko Jacek Kolodziej taku ingoa, nō Pōrana (Poland) ōku tupuna. I am the Policy and Science Manager at New Zealand AIDS Foundation, and I am very excited to be working with the SPOTS Study team and support the research that will bring us closer to updating our understanding of the dynamics of the HIV epidemic in Aotearoa. I am also sure that the evidence gathered through this study will help us advocate for policies that enable equitable outcomes for our communities, actively resist discrimination in healthcare and other settings, and inform strategic approach to sexual health among all people disproportionately affected by HIV.

(Investigator until 2022)

I’m the lucky guy who gets to lead the awesome team at the New Zealand AIDS Foundation (NZAF). With a social science PhD under my belt and time spent on the leadership team of Oxfam New Zealand, it is a passion for social justice and a commitment to health equity that drives my work. When I am not working, I am privileged enough to live on the gorgeous Waiheke Island where my partner and I make the most of proximity to the beach and are building a house together. I can’t overstate how excited I am that the SPOTS study is happening and that I get to be a part of it. The data will be critical in ensuring NZAF’s work is as targeted and effective as possible.