Marta Mulawa

Marta Mulawa, PhD, MHS, is an Associate Professor in the Duke University School of Nursing, and core faculty within the Duke Global Health Institute, the Duke Center for Global Mental Health, and the Duke University Population Research Institute. She received her PhD in Health Behavior from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and her MHS in International Health from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed postdoctoral training through Duke’s NIH-funded Interdisciplinary Research Training Program in AIDS (IRTPA), along with additional NIH-supported training as a Social Networks & Health Fellow and an mHealth Training Institute Scholar. She is currently a Fellow in the HIV, Infectious Disease and Global Health Implementation Research Institute (HIGH IRI).

Dr. Mulawa’s research advances innovative approaches to improving health among adolescents and young adults by addressing social and behavioral drivers of HIV prevention, treatment, and related health outcomes. Her work leverages social networks, implementation science, and community-engaged methods to develop and evaluate interventions across global and U.S. settings.

Her prior NIH-funded research, including a K01 Mentored Research Scientist Development Award and work as the Duke Site PI of an R01 evaluating the HealthMpowerment digital health intervention, generated foundational insights into how social networks shape HIV-related behaviors and informed peer-based strategies to improve engagement in HIV prevention and care. This work led to the development of the MASI intervention, a mobile health platform to support treatment adherence among adolescents living with HIV, which has been adapted for implementation to support youth with HIV in Nigeria.

Dr. Mulawa currently leads a portfolio of studies applying social network and implementation science approaches across global and U.S. contexts. In Tanzania, she leads research to co-develop and evaluate a decision support tool to support HIV prevention decision-making among peer networks of adolescent girls and young women. She also leads a study focused on adapting and evaluating a digitally delivered mental health intervention for youth living with HIV in Kenya. In addition, she is Principal Investigator of a study to adapt a digital mental health and peer support intervention for adolescents with chronic health conditions in rural North Carolina.