Dr. Rodolfo R. Vega, born in Arecibo, Puerto Rico, is a Senior Consultant at John Snow, Inc. He is a graduate of The University of Texas at Austin’s doctoral program in Community Psychology, and a National Institute of Drug Abuse Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Center for Family Studies, University of Miami School of Medicine. He has extensive experience in working with communities of color across the nation in the areas of asthma, diabetes, HIV/AIDS, substance abuse, and mental health.
Dr. Vega has collaborated with community-based organizations in translating research into practice, providing technical assistance in service integration strategies, and developing evaluation designs. He was a research associate in the National Inner-City Cooperative Asthma Study at Albert Einstein University in the South Bronx, NY; a member of the Reach 2010 Diabetes Study in Lawrence, MA; and co-principal investigator of the SAMHSA/CSAP Minority AIDS Initiative Cohort 1.
He led the development of the cost, outcome, and capacity building evaluation as well as the cross-site survey and served as a consultant to the SAMHSA/CSAP Minority AIDS Initiative Cohorts 2, 3, and 4.
Dr. Vega also was a Senior Evaluator for the Health Resources and Services Administration HIV/AIDS Bureau’s Minority AIDS Initiative funded programs. He assessed the impact evaluation of all 22 HRSA/HAB programs receiving funds from the MAI. Rodolfo also served as Senior Technical Advisor in the JSI senior management team of the Centers for Disease Control HIV/AIDS Program Evaluation and Monitoring System Technical Assistance Project. As Senior Technical Advisor and Evaluator of a SAMHSA/CMHS Initiative, he provided technical assistance to nine community based-organizations serving the mental health needs of mostly Latino elderly. As part of a CDC capacity building assistance program, he currently works with leaders in the Latino community in the Midwest to get them involved in the implementation of evidence-based HIV/AIDS prevention services.
Dr. Vega currently serves as senior technical advisor for The Leadership Campaign on AIDS, an initiative sponsored by the DHHS Office of HIV/AIDS Programs. In that role, he is in charge of leading all technical assistance and training activities geared towards providers of HIV/Services to Hispanic-serving organizations. He is a member of the NIDA-sponsored Hispanic Science Network Initiative. In this role he was one of the contributing authors to the National Strategic Plan on Hispanic Drug Abuse Research. Most recently, Dr. Vega collaborate with the Joslin Diabetes Center as senior evaluator of their Diabetes and health literacy initiative with Hispanics in Massachusetts.