Congratulations to Dr. Kelli O’Laughlin on winning the 2017 AWAEM Hidden Gem Award! This award is to honor female faculty members with outstanding contributions through clinical work, teaching, mentorship, role modeling, or administration, having great impact locally or regionally. This award is designed to recognize those whose significant but quiet contributions may escape recognition.

Kelli O’Laughlin, MD, MPH, attended the Oregon Health & Science University School of Medicine (2003) and completed her emergency medicine residency at the University of California, Los Angeles / Olive-View UCLA Emergency Medicine Residency Program (2007). She earned her MPH at the Harvard School of Public Health (2008). She is an emergency medicine physician at Brigham and Women’s Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts and an Assistant Professor at Harvard Medical School. She is a Research Fellow at the Massachusetts General Hospital Medical Practice Evaluation Center. Dr. O’Laughlin is faculty at the Harvard Humanitarian Initiative and the Partners Center of Expertise in Global and Humanitarian Health.

Dr. O’Laughlin conducts research focused on assessing health needs of refugee populations and on designing and evaluating refugee-specific interventions to improve care. She works in collaboration with Medical Teams International and the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees to evaluate the HIV care continuum in a refugee population in Nakivale Refugee Settlement in Uganda. In the next 5 years she will evaluate the health behavior and ecologic context influences on HIV care among refugee populations, to gain a more in-depth understanding of linkage to HIV care in Nakivale (K23 MH108440-01A1). With findings from this research she will study and apply intervention mapping methodology to design, implement and evaluate an HIV linkage intervention in this unique setting.

Congratulations Dr. O’Laughlin!