I grew up in California and always wanted to be a doctor. After college at the University of California in San Diego, I moved to Oregon, obtained a Master’s degree in biochemistry at Oregon State University in Corvallis and then an MD at Oregon Health Sciences University in Portland. During the second year of medical school, our courses often included interviews with or lectures from patients with different diseases. One of these lectures was by a gay man who told us about “GRID”, or gay-related immunodeficiency, which we now know as AIDS.

After medical school, I completed a residency in Neurology. During my residency, I helped care for many patients who had neurological complications of AIDS. I was amazed that what I had thought of as GRID, a rare immune problem, became so common and affected the nervous system in so many ways. After my residency, I completed a fellowship in Infectious Diseases. My fellowship training focused on infections, particularly HIV and syphilis, which affect the nervous system. I began working with the ACTU in 1992. I help develop and carry out clinical studies of treatment for neurological complications of HIV, including nerve damage, dementia and brain infections.

I live in Seattle with my husband and my two dogs. In my spare time, I like to bake, read novels, exercise and watch baseball in person or on television.

Jeffrey Schouten is a staff physician at the University of Washington ACTU. He is an Assistant Clinical Professor of Surgery at the University of Washington and a primary care physician at Harborview Medical Center's Madison Clinic, Washington's largest HIV-specialty clinic. He is a credentialed HIV specialist by the American Academy of HIV Medicine. Dr. Schouten is a retired general surgeon, who specialized in surgical oncology. From 1982-1986 he was a member of the surgical faculty at University of Texas Southwestern Medical School, and then was head of the general surgery division for Kaiser- Permanente, Honolulu, Hawaii, from 1986-1989.

Since 1989 he has been on permanent disability due to HIV infection. He is also a graduate of the University Of Washington School Of Law and a member of the Washington State Bar Association. He was a member of the national community advisory board of the AIDS Clinical Trials Group (ACTG) for 4 years and served on the Executive Committee of the ACTG for 3 years. He is also a member of the AIDS Malignancy Consortium, the External Advisory Board of the Neurologic ADIS Research Consortium, Chair of Washington's Governor's Advisory Council on HIV/AIDS, and Chair of the board of directors of the national American Academy of HIV Medicine. In his free time, Jeff and his partner work in their overgrown garden.