The UW/Fred Hutch Center for AIDS Research is pleased to announce the 2026 New Investigator Award (NIA) recipients. The purpose of this award program is to encourage early-stage investigators (at a senior stage of training or recently independent) to conduct independent research, acquire preliminary data to use for exogenous grant submissions, publish, receive mentorship, and write one or more grants to obtain funding to continue their HIV/AIDS research careers. Recipients are awarded up to $70,000 total (direct costs) for 2-year non-interdisciplinary projects, or $80,000 (direct costs) total for 2-year interdisciplinary projects.
Congratulations to our 2026 CFAR NIA Awardees, Dr. Carrie Fahey of the University of Washington, Dr. Tom Fitzpatrick of the University of Washington, Dr. Brenden Mullen of the University of Washington, and Dr. Sarafa Iyaniwura of Fred Hutch!
Carrie Fahey, PhD, MPH*
Acting Assistant Professor, University of Washington
Project Title: Incorporating social and contextual factors into frailty risk assessment within HIV primary care
Mentors: Heidi Crane (University of Washington), Joseph Delaney (University of Washington), Rob Fredericksen (University of Washington)
Dr. Carrie Fahey is an epidemiologist and implementation scientist who studies social drivers of health across the life course. Her work has evaluated the effectiveness and optimal implementation of strategies to improve HIV care outcomes. Her current research focuses on the intersection of aging, place, and HIV. She recently received a K01 career development award from the National Institute on Aging to study neighborhoods and frailty in people with HIV. Building on this work, her New Investigator Award will use mixed methods to develop and validate a frailty risk assessment tool for use in routine HIV care.
Faculty profile: Dr. Carrie Fahey
*Co-sponsored by the UW Behavioral Innovation Research Center for HIV (BIRCH)
Tom Fitzpatrick, MD, MPH*
Acting Instructor, University of Washington
Project Title: Alternative safer drug use materials to increase PWUD engagement in HIV care
Mentor: Sara Glick (University of Washington), Crystal Smith (Washington State University), Kristin Beima-Sofie (University of Washington)
Dr. Thomas (Tom) Fitzpatrick MD MPH is an Acting Instructor in the UW Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases. His goal as a clinician and researcher is to develop and deliver new interventions that reduce drug use harms. He has two decades of experience implementing and evaluating public health programs in partnership with people who use drugs (PWUD) in the United States and China. His CFAR New Investigator Award will support a mixed-methods evaluation of a new intervention to increase engagement in prevention services designed by PWUD themselves.
*Co-sponsored by the UW Behavioral Innovation Research Center for HIV (BIRCH)
Brenden Mullen, MD
Clinician Researcher, University of Washington
Project Title: Improving the detection of TB in children in a high-burden HIV setting using oral swab analysis
Mentors: Sylvia LaCourse (University of Washington), Gerard Cangelosi (University of Washington)
Dr. Brendan Mullen is a physician-scientist in the Division of Allergy and Infectious Diseases at the University of Washington. His recent work focuses on strategies to improve the detection of TB in groups at elevated risk of disease progression, including children and adults living with HIV, using non-sputum-based diagnostic tools and descriptive epidemiology. The research supported by his New Investigator Award will investigate novel TB oral swab platforms and oral sampling methods in children in Nairobi, with the goal of improving early TB detection in children with and without HIV.
Sarafa Iyaniwura, PhD
Research Associate, VIDD at Fred Hutch
Project Title: Optimizing HIV germline-targeting and sequential immunization regimens via dynamic modeling
Mentors: Ollivier Hyrien (Fred Hutch), Yunda Huang (Fred Hutch), Will Hahn (Fred Hutch)
Dr. Sarafa Iyaniwura is a Research Associate in the VIDD at the Fred Hutchinson Cancer Center. His research uses data-driven mathematical models to study infectious diseases and immunology. He received his Ph.D. in Mathematics from the University of British Columbia in 2021 and completed postdoctoral training at Los Alamos National Laboratory, where he developed mathematical theory to characterize the in vivo kinetics of viruses and the immune response to infection. His current research, funded by a CFAR New Investigator Award, aims to develop a mechanistic modeling framework to characterize B-cell dynamics during immunologic prophylaxis-induced immune responses, with an emphasis on HIV germline-targeting and sequential immunization strategies. A central goal is to optimize immunologic prophylaxis regimens to inform clinical trial design and improve outcomes.
LinkedIn: Dr. Sarafa Iyaniwura
To learn more, visit the CFAR New Investigator Awards page or contact us at cfardev@uw.edu.