image of psych alumni Emily Hiserodt

Emily Hiserodt is the Senior Research Coordinator & Research Assistant Supervisor at Philadelphia FIGHT Community Health Centers, where she aids in conducting industry sponsored, CFAR, NIH/NIMH, and small grant funded work focusing on therapeutic drug monitoring for HIV negative patients taking pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), optimizing HIV treatment, HIV reservoir mapping and reversal, and ciswomen's knowledge and attitudes toward PrEP. Emily is responsible for screening and recruiting patients for eligibility in clinical trials as well as conducting clinical trial visits. She reports adverse and serious adverse events to the Principal Investigator for assessment and treatment, performs phlebotomy and blood processing, conducts EKGs, dispenses investigative drugs to participants, and reports protocol deviations to the IRB.  Emily works closely with medical providers at the health center in order to maintain the highest standard of care for patients on clinical trials. In addition, she provides education and counseling to research participants across relevant topics such as medication adherence and safe sex. As FIGHT's Research Department has continued to expand, she now has also trained an RA whom she also supervises. 

Emily graduated from Temple University in 2014 with a Bachelor's degree in Psychology and a minor in French.  During her time as an undergraduate, her main research interests were in behavioral economics, I/O psychology, and health psychology, and she completed her Honors Psychology undergraduate thesis under the mentorship of Dr. Donald Hantula. In her last semester at Temple, her research interests shifted toward public health and she accepted a year-long grant-funded position as the Project Manager for the Philadelphia sample of the CDC's Youth Risk Behavior Survey (YRBS). The YRBS is conducted nationally every other year and aims to examine health risk behaviors among high school aged youth.  Without her background in Psychology research at Temple, Emily reports that her path to a position in public health research might not have been possible. 

After completion of her position for the YRBS, she enrolled in Temple's Master of Public Health program.  She credits her previous research experience at Temple helped her obtain an MPH practicum at CHOP's PolicyLab, where she was mentored by adolescent gynecologist Dr. Aletha Akers, MD, MPH. Emily earned a Master of Public Health with a concentration in Health Policy and Management in 2017. Since then, Emily has published multiple papers and presented research across several fields including HIV treatment and pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP), sexual and reproductive health, and behavioral economics. Emily advises that current Psychology undergraduates expand their horizons, get involved in research, and remain willing to explore the many exciting areas that a psychology degree can prepare you for.