Winner of 2025 Cesar Augusto Caceres Award for Innovations in HIV Prevention and Care Announced

WASHINGTON, DC: The American Academy of HIV Medicine and the Institute for Technology in Health Care have awarded the 2025 Cesar Augusto Caceres Award for Innovations in HIV Prevention and Care to Omolola Ogunyemi, PhD, FACMI, director of the Center for Biomedical Informatics at Charles R. Drew University of Medicine and Science (CDU), and LaShonda Spencer, MD, FAAP, AAHIVS, director of the Drew Center for AIDS Research, Education and Services (Drew CARES) and the MLK OASIS Clinic. The award acknowledges outstanding contributions to HIV care and prevention and the advancement of health care through the creative use and application of technology.

Dr. Ogunyemi’s and Dr. Spencer’s initiative applies artificial intelligence/machine learning (AI/ML) to improve HIV treatment outcomes in South Los Angeles by predicting virologic failure among patients starting antiretroviral therapy and identifying individuals at risk for poor adherence or falling out of care. By integrating clinical data with social determinants of health and behavioral metrics, the project aims to enable earlier, targeted interventions to improve viral suppression rates, which currently fall well below local and national goals.

“We are deeply honored to receive this recognition,” says Dr. Ogunyemi. “The funding from the Caceres Award will help us further the goals of our program, using health information technology and data science to enhance equitable HIV prevention. By integrating clinical data with social determinants of health, we can shift from reactive treatment to proactive, personalized care.”

“We are incredibly proud to lead this innovative project, which leverages AI and machine learning to tackle the complex challenges of HIV treatment in South Los Angeles,” said Dr. Spencer. “Our goal is to significantly improve adherence to antiretroviral therapy and enhance the overall health outcomes for individuals with HIV, ultimately striving for greater health equity.”

A central innovation of this project is the integration of clinical, behavioral and social determinants of health (SDOH) data – such as income, housing instability, food insecurity and neighborhood-level health care access – in South Los Angeles. These data can be used to generate actionable, personalized risk predictions. Model performance will be evaluated using ten-fold cross-validation and standard metrics, as well as implementation-focused measures assessing patient identification and outreach. Patients identified as high risk will be referred to an established Enhanced Patient Navigation team that will provide a time-limited intervention utilizing housing-first, harm reduction and trauma-informed principles.

In its fourteenth year, the Cesar Augusto Caceres Award for Innovations in HIV Prevention and Care seeks to promote efficacious innovations developed in clinical settings that are designed to prevent, treat and care for people with or at risk of HIV. The award honors the legacy of Dr. Cesar Caceres, founder of the Institute for Technology in Health Care.

Dr. Ogunyemi and Dr. Spencer will be hosting an Academy webinar in 2026 to discuss their research, outcomes, key lessons learned, and how other providers and health care systems could adopt their program to improve patient care and outcomes.

About the American Academy of HIV Medicine

The American Academy of HIV Medicine is the nation’s leading independent organization of health care professionals dedicated to providing excellence in HIV care and prevention. Our membership of practitioners and credentialed clinicians manage the health of the majority of people with and at risk of HIV in the United States.

About the Institute for Technology in Health Care

The Institute for Technology in Health Care is a non-profit organization, located in Washington, DC. The Institute for Technology in Health Care is concerned with the use of technology to benefit and stimulate others in health care. For more information about The Institute for Technology in Health Care, please visit the website at www.ithcawards.org.