Dr. Natalia Blanco is the project coordinator for Project 1. She currently holds the position of Director of Health Programs at the Institute of Human Virology (IHV) Center of International Health, Education and Biosecurity (Ciheb) at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. She holds a doctoral degree (PhD) focused on Epidemiological Sciences from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and a Master of Public Health (MPH) from Tulane University School of Public Health and Tropical Medicine. Dr. Blanco has over 10 years of domestic and international programmatic and research experience as an infectious disease epidemiologist. Her research has focused on worldwide important human infectious pathogens, including HIV, influenza, COVID-19, and multidrug-resistant microorganisms. She has authored more than 65 peer-reviewed publications and has more than 500 citations. In recent years, she has collaborated in the implementation, analysis, and dissemination of results of several HIV prevention, care and treatment programs in sub-Saharan Africa.