Hyunsan Cho, PhD, Sociology
Research Scientist
Chapel Hill Center
Chapel Hill , N. Carolina

Phone: (919) 265-2620
Fax: (919) 265-2659
Email: cho@pire.org


Hyunsan Cho, Ph.D., is a Research Scientist at PIRE. She has been with PIRE since 2002. Dr. Cho has conducted a variety of research projects over more than 10 years. Her current interests include HIV prevention research in Sub-Saharan Africa, adolescent risk behaviors, global health disparities, and government policy evaluation. She earned her Ph.D. in Sociology from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. As a sociologist with a strong statistical background, she has extensive experience in conducting NIH-funded randomized controlled trials (RCTs). Currently, she is the Principal Investigator (PI) of an R01 grant funded by NIMH, titled “School Support as Structural HIV Prevention for Adolescent Orphans in in Kenya” (2011-2016). She also serves as a co-investigator of an RCT being conducted in Zimbabwe funded by NICHD (PI, Denise Hallfors). These projects are innovative clinical trials designed to test whether keeping orphans in school can reduce their risk for HIV infection. She leads the randomization and data analyses for both projects and leads all aspects of the research process for the Kenya project.

Prior to her HIV prevention research in Sub-Saharan Africa, Dr. Cho was the Co-Investigator and chief methodologist of a large RCT testing the effectiveness of the Reconnecting Youth (RY) program for high-risk high school youth in two large urban U.S. cities. She led a key project paper on iatrogenic program effects and another on the association between drug use and suicide behaviors. She also led a paper on genetic contribution to suicide risk among U.S. adolescents using data from the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent Health (Add Health). Her range of statistical methods is very broad and includes longitudinal data analysis, structural equation modeling, meta-analysis, cluster analysis, social network analysis, and multi-level analysis. Dr. Cho also has provided innovative methodological leadership in integrating qualitative process evaluation data with quantitative outcome data in a study evaluating “Fighting Back” community coalitions and the RY program. She also led a paper on the evaluation of federal school policy which examines the gap between state/district level and federal government policy on authorized drug and violence prevention activities in the U.S.