Dr. Amanda Castel is a tenured Professor in the Department of Epidemiology at the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and former Co-Director of the Masters in Science Public Health Microbiology and Emerging Infectious Diseases program. She is a medical epidemiologist with board certifications in pediatrics and preventive medicine and completed the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Epidemic Intelligence Service program. Dr. Castel’s research interests include identifying interventions to maximize adherence to pre-exposure prophylaxis, assessing outcomes along the HIV care continuum including routine testing expansion, and developing interventions to improve quality of care, and increase engagement in care, adherence, and viral suppression. Between 2006 and 2017, Dr. Castel provided technical and epidemiologic expertise to the DC Department of Health's HIV/AIDS Administration through a Public Health-Academic Partnership and through the Enhanced Comprehensive HIV Prevention Planning Initiative. Through these partnership activities, she often used routinely collected testing and HIV surveillance data to measure population-based outcomes, such as community viral load. In addition to her health department activities, Dr. Castel is the Principal Investigator of several studies including the DC Cohort, a NIH-funded public health research database which follows over 11,000 HIV-infected individuals receiving care in the District of Columbia, and a molecular epidemiology substudy of the DC Cohort which seeks to identify clusters of HIV infection for disease transmission interruption. She also studies the role of using mobile technology and applications to improve HIV prevention, testing and adherence among key populations such as men who have sex with men and youth at-risk for or living with HIV. Dr. Castel has also conducted international HIV/AIDS research, teaches courses on infectious diseases including HIV, and is a volunteer attending physician at Children's National Medical Center in the Special Immunology Clinic of the Infectious Disease Department and at the DC Department of Health Health and Wellness Clinic. She serves on local, national and international advisory councils and boards. During the COVID-19 pandemic, Dr. Castel has used her training and expertise in medicine, infectious diseases, outbreak investigations, applied public health epidemiology and surveillance to serve as a case investigator with the DC Department of Health, Lead Epidemiologist for GWU’s Public Health COVID-reopening and response efforts, as a consultant and advisor to local health departments, universities, schools and private businesses, and frequently gives talks to the scientific community, press and local community about COVID-19.