2019 HIV League Scholars

Nicholas L. Calvin

Nicholas L. Calvin is a native of Nashville, TN. Growing up in Nashville, Nicholas served on the Mayor’s Youth Council and was a member of several organizations including, but not limited to, East Nashville Magnet School’s Allies, SGA, FCA, and the National Honor Society.

After graduating from East Nashville Magnet, Nicholas attended Howard University in Washington D.C. where he completed his freshman and sophomore years. While attending Howard, Nicholas worked in the U.S. House of Representatives for United States Congressman Jim Cooper, served as a co-chair for Howard University’s Women’s Week, and became a member of Howard University’s Society of Collegiate Black Men.

Once he returned to Nashville, Nicholas began working at Nashville CARES, an HIV/AIDS non-profit organization with a mission to end the spread of HIV/AIDS in Middle Tennessee. For over 3 years, Nicholas has impacted the lives of many by offering HIV testing, serving as a peer navigator, and granting them access to healthcare and personal care services. In 2018 Nicholas hosted the first Mahogany Honors Empowerment Gala to honor those of color in the Middle Tennessee area who serve on the front lines in the fights against HIV/AIDS and positive LGBTQ+ progressions. The event is now in its second year and had over 100 guests to attend 2019’s gala with more than $1,500 in proceeds to benefit those in the community.

Nicholas hopes to run for public office to initiate further change. His favorite quote is, “It’s when things seem worse, that you just don’t quit.” from the poem, “Don’t Quit”.

Troizel D. L. Carr

An artist, advocate, and academic, Troizel is black + alive and that means more than these words can say. They are pursuing their PhD at New York University in Performance Studies, where they also earned their MA. Currently, their research wants to consider figurations of black children in post-emancipation aesthetics and the capacities of those figurations to articulate the possibility of black freedom. They also hold a Teaching Fellowship at the New Museum of Contemporary Art in New York City, where they lead weekly New Perspective tours.

Troizel enjoys facilitation and curriculum development and created a retreat for black queer and trans students at NYU to create community and consider strategies for finding liberation in the every day. Above all else, they are committed to fully living whatever life they choose for themselves.

John Arthur Jackson, III “JJ”

JJ is currently pursuing a Master’s Degree at The Chicago School of Professional Psychology in Clinical Mental Health Counseling. JJ’s current research interests are centered on counseling queer youth of color, communities most impacted by HIV/AIDS through a mental health context, and social determinants of health that influence the sexual behaviors of QPOCs. JJ also has interests in vicarious trauma, pathological altruism and how that affects help-seeking behaviors for queer persons of color. JJ currently works as an HIV/AIDS Care Coordinator at a non-profit LGBTQ safe space. JJ was the sole recipient at his school of the National Board for Certified Counselors Minority Fellowship which requires him to directly impact transition-aged youth and he used the funding to create operational policies, competencies, and documents to enhance overall engagement and care to LGTBQQIA youth of color.

JJ is seeking to reintroduce the concept of Transparency as a healing mechanism for divergent and minoritized identities that did not have space for their voices to be heard, specifically, Black and Latino MSM.

JJ is extremely humbled and honored to be an HIV League Scholar with one of his long-term goals is to be a licensed clinical psychotherapist working directly with sexually and gender divergent minorities. Aside from “attempting” to be Superman by day and Clark Kent by night, JJ loves playing tennis, smiling, watching scary movies, reading, and being a father to a rambunctious Chihuahua mix named Zoe. On a more freeing note, this is the first time JJ is coming out about their status since finding out their diagnosis.

Anthony R. Lucas

Anthony holds an M.A. in Psychology from the Wright Institute and a B.A. in Rhetoric from the University of California, Berkeley. He is currently a third-year doctoral student in Clinical Psychology at the Wright Institute in Berkeley. His doctoral research focuses on romantic relationship dissolution and the impact of heartbreak on the self-concept of LGBT identified people. He is also currently training as a psychotherapist with LGBT and HIV-affected clients at UCSF Alliance Health Project. He is an ambassador for the American Psychological Association and a member of the International Association for Relationship Research.

In 2018, Anthony was a panelist at the 10th Annual UCSF LGBTQIA+ Health Forum where he presented on brief evidence-based psychological interventions along with his experiences working with HIV+ men of color as both a clinician and person living with HIV.

Before graduate school, Anthony worked with newly HIV/AIDS diagnosed youth at the East Bay AIDS Center as a youth advocate and linkage/outreach coordinator to the C.R.U.S.H Project, in which he expanded access to PrEP and HIV/AIDS primary care to people of color in San Francisco and the East Bay. In recognition of this work, Anthony received the CEO Circle Award from Sutter Health and the Pedro Zamora Award from La Clinica de la Raza.

Anthony is Puerto Rican, a long distance runner and likes listening to bachata, reggaetón, rap, and ‘90s hip-hop. He is a cat dad to an orange tabby, loves crime documentaries, and can recite Shakespeare’s Sonnet 116 from memory.

Medical Student

Because of the nature of the HIV League Scholarship, recipients have the option to not make their name public. This HIV League Scholar requested to keep their name private, and we are respecting their wishes.

Tankut Atuk

Tankut is a second-year PhD student in Gender, Women, and Sexuality Studies at the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities. He holds two master’s degrees in Gender Studies and Sociology/Cultural Studies. His current project looks at the socio-political dimensions of the world’s fastest growing HIV epidemic in Turkey. He specifically asks, “What does the refusal to recognize and prevent the national HIV epidemic reveal about the Turkish State's institutional approach towards sex, sexuality, and sexually transmitted diseases (STDs)?” He seeks to understand and redress the ways in which the Turkish State violates access to health(care) and fails in responding to the HIV epidemic.

Although he is passionate about teaching and researching, he is also aware that radical transformation is not possible without activism and community involvement. He tries to be an active part of the grassroots HIV organizations not only in Turkey but also in the US. Being a member of differently marginalized groups, he is especially invested in producing academic work that is not divorced from the lived realities and aims at challenging structural inequalities and injustices.

Outside of academy, Tankut is a proud dog and plant daddy. The only thing he is not humble about is his cooking skills. He is vegan as he is convinced that environmental justice, animal rights, and human rights are inextricable. Besides cooking, he finds his happiness in movies and books, particularly dystopias and feminist/queer sci-fi. He desperately wishes he could sing, yet he is good at lip-syncing.

Tankut is especially excited about being an HIV League Scholar because it means becoming part of a new and growing family to him.

Nicole Begay

Nicole Begay is a 20-year-old third year student at the University of Arizona. She is studying Retail and Consumer Sciences to work with her Fashion minor. Her plans for the next 5 years include starting up a small business selling fashionable trends and eventually RED products to continue supporting the HIV community. Nicole loves everything crafty and creative, can never give up on a hobby until it is perfect, and when she puts her mind to something there is nothing that will stop her.

She is proud of the volunteer work she has put into the HIV community. Last year she had the honor of being a Co-chair of the Phoenix Aids Walk in Arizona. She has been a speaker numerous times at events around Arizona along with many other communities. Her favorite places to volunteer are the middle schools where she shares her story and status with young kids.

Nicole takes pride in herself and her work as an advocate in the community of HIV/AIDS and abuse. She has a passion and burden for young adults who suffer with these issues. She plans to continue her volunteering at police stations, on reservations, and at the University of Arizona. She is blessed to be working with The HIV League to help continue her journey through school to become the person she wants to be someday.

Rod McCoy Jr.

Rodney “Rod” McCoy, Jr. has been in public health for over thirty years. In this work, Rod brings his expertise in HIV, STI and Hepatitis prevention and education, as well as his real-life experience as a Black gay man living with HIV. An Oberlin graduate with his Bachelor’s in Sociology and Black Studies, Rod has worked in a variety of capacities for a number of organizations. In his time as an Adjunct Professor at George Mason University, Rod established the “HIV, Culture and Sexuality” course for the school’s Global and Community Health Department (where he still presents as a guest lecturer).

Rod will pursue his Master’s of Education degree from Widener University in the Fall 2019, with a concentration in Human Sexuality Studies. About his studies, Rod offers the following: “I am an openly Black, openly gay, openly kinky, openly HIV-positive man in my fifties. Yet, as positively as I feel about my sexuality, I have encountered people who feel that I should somehow feel ashamed about my sexuality and/or my HIV status. I have also encountered others who have had similar struggles in embracing their own sexuality and maintaining their sexual health. I want to further explore the idea of sex positivity as a social determinant of health, not just in HIV/STI Prevention, but in all aspects of health. This has been the reason for me to continue learning and speaking about the intersectionality of sexuality, race, gender and gender identity and health.”

Ciara Owens

Ciara Owens is working on her doctoral degree of Education in Organizational Leadership with an Emphasis in K-12 Education from Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, Arizona. Her dissertation focuses on the secondary teacher experience of the use and implementation of distributive leadership by principals.

Ciara is an energetic, data-driven, passionate educator highly committed to the empowerment of students in diverse and inclusive communities to become leaders and advocates of their own education through high expectations and sustained support. Ciara’s contribution to the Las Vegas community was formally recognized when she won the 2018 Heart of Education Award. Ciara currently serves in the Clark County School District as a project facilitator in the English Language Learners Division.

Ciara is also a proud member of Alpha Kappa Alpha Sorority, Incorporated.

Ciara is honored to be an HIV League Scholar and looks forward to advocate for reducing stigma in the African American community.

Ciara’s vision for her life is based on Maya Angelou’s quote, “My mission in life is not merely to survive, but to thrive; and to do so with some passion, some compassion, some humor, and some style”.