Carlos A. O. Pavão

Carlos A. O. Pavão is a Clinical Associate Professor in the Undergraduate Program at the Georgia State University School of Public Health and Assistant Dean for Belonging and Placemaking.

He has more than 20 years of public health practitioner experience at the local and national levels. Throughout his career, he has focused on the nexus between dissemination research and innovative public health programming, specifically for lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender (LGBT), and linguistic minority populations. He has been mentored by many professionals and believes in the power of mentorship and fostering the next generation of public health professionals.

Dr. Pavão started his public health career as a community organizer in HIV prevention and operated several community coalitions for tobacco control and substance use. In the 1990s, he developed three community-based adolescent health programs to educate sexual minority youth on healthy relationships, suicide prevention, HIV/STD prevention, and teen pregnancy. One of these youth programs was recognized by the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) Media Awards in an article published in 2000 — “Massachusetts Groups Help Gay Teens Cope.” This newspaper article explored the complexities of what it means to be a gay youth of color.

Before his doctoral degree, he worked for ten years on a national SAMHSA technical assistance grant to provide training and strategic technical assistance to Single State Agencies (including Caribbean territories and Tribes) on public health planning and implementation, capacity building, sustainability planning, and evaluation. He has also worked for the DeKalb County Board of Health, building community school partnerships with the Mayor’s Office of New Bedford, Massachusetts, and several nonprofits.

In 2000, Massachusetts Governor Jane Swift (and under Governor Mitt Romney) appointed him to serve in the Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth. He is a past AVAC’s PxROAR (Prevention Research, Outreach, Advocacy, and Representation) HIV Advocacy Fellow. In 2007, he was selected by Dr. Elias A. Zerhouni, Director at the National Institutes of Health (NIH), to serve a four-year appointment on the Director’s Council of Public Representatives (COPR) – and served under three NIH Directors. He is also the recipient of the 2020 GSU School of Public Health Excellence in Mentorship.

As a practitioner, he has secured $2.5 million in various grants: HIV, tobacco control, substance abuse prevention, and adolescent programming. He has been an evaluator on various grants ($1.5 million) and various topics: HIV and teen pregnancy with Ambassadors for Christ in Houston, a CDC HIV grant with NashvilleCARES, and several health access projects with Aniz Inc. in Atlanta. As Principal Investigator, he completed two community-based research projects on health access with bisexuals and transgender communities in Atlanta.