Merceditas Villanueva, MD

Dr. Villanueva is Director of the HIV/AIDS Program and Associate Professor of Medicine at Yale University School of Medicine. She obtained her undergraduate degree at Harvard University and MD at Washington University. She completed Internal Medicine Residency training at Duke University and subspecialty fellowship training in Infectious Diseases at Yale.

After fellowship, she left academia to work at Waterbury Hospital, a community hospital, where she was Chief of Infectious Diseases. During this time, she established the Ryan White-funded HIV clinic which worked closely with community based AIDS organizations. Her experience in promoting collaborations became the basis for subsequent research interests and her recruitment back to Yale.

A major focus of her academic work has been on developing HIV educational curricula for medical providers including Yale house staff and community providers throughout CT. She also serves as the Principal Investigator for the New Haven Ryan White HIV Continuum, a collaboration between different clinics and community organizations which promotes service coordination to improve quality of care for HIV patients, particularly those that are underserved. Her research interests focus on optimizing models of care that capitalize on partnerships between the medical establishment and community support.