The HIV Center for Clinical and Behavioral Studies conducts research on HIV prevention and treatment through the lens of gender, sexuality, and mental health with a goal of designing effective interventions to reduce risk for HIV infection. The HIV Center’s interdisciplinary approach encompasses psychology, psychiatry, public health, anthropology, sociology, and social work. The Center supports a Postdoctoral Fellowship Program on Behavioral Sciences Training in HIV Infection. While based in New York City, the Center’s research is both national and international in scope.

Zena Stein with a grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) in conjunction with the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA). Ehrhardt served as Director, 1987-2013; Stein (1987-2004) and psychiatrist Robert Spitzer (1987-1988) served as a Co-Directors. At the time of this writing, the HIV Center is jointly operated by the New York State Psychiatric Institute and Columbia University.

Hundreds of individuals have been involved in the HIV Center’s research, programs and operations as investigators, consultants, facilitators, committee members advisors, reviewers, staff, participants, community liaisons, instructors, and more. As one of the early AIDS Research Centers (ARC) supported by the US National Institute of Mental Health, Division of AIDS Research (DAR), the work of its practitioners have been influential in the field of AIDS/HIV behavioral health.

Early leadership included clinical psychologist Heino Meyer Bahlburg as one of the Center’s first investigators and physician Rafael Tavares, Director of community psychiatry at Presbyterian Hospital who led the HIV Center’s first “Community Core” until his death from AIDS in 1988. Later investigators included Alex Carballo-Diéguez, Francine Cournos, Curtis Dolezal, Theresa Exner, Susie Hoffman, Joyce Hunter, Robert Kertzner, Robert Klitzman, Claude Ann Mellins, Masud Rahman, Robert H. Remien, and Patricia A. Warne.

In 1989, the HIV Center introduced a postdoctoral program--also funded by the NIMH--to provide training and interdisciplinary research for fellows to develop expertise in areas of HIV research and to have the opportunity to attend weekly Grand Rounds. This program continues at the time of this writing.

In 2008, the HIV Center became the organizational home for the New York/New Jersey AIDS Education and Training Center (AETC), later known as the Northeast/Caribbean AETC.

The Center first published the HIV Center newsletter in May 1991.