Sabrina Annick Assoumou MD, MPH

Biography

Sabrina A. Assoumou, MD MPH, is the inaugural Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Professor of Medicine and Associate Professor of Medicine at Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine. She is also an attending physician in the section of Infectious Diseases at Boston Medical Center. She is a clinician-investigator who cares for patients with human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) at the BUSM/BMC’s Centers for Infectious Diseases. Her research focuses on medical complications of substance use including HIV and Hepatitis C virus (HCV). She is also interested in models of care and on improving the continuum of care for individuals with HIV and/or HCV. She successfully transitioned from an NIH K23 Mentored Career Development Award to improve linkage to care after testing for HIV and HCV and is now leading an NIH R01 to increase uptake of HIV prevention measures.

Dr. Assoumou has published in multiple journals including Clinical Infectious Diseases, AIDS, Annals of Internal Medicine and the Journal of American Medical Association. Her work has also been included in the American Association for the Study of Liver Diseases (AASLD)/ Infectious Diseases Society of America (IDSA) recommendations for testing, managing and treating HCV (Assoumou et al., Clin Infect Dis 2018) as well as HCV testing recommendations by the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (Assoumou et al., Clin Infect Dis 2018 and Assoumou et al., Clin Infect Dis. 2019). Dr. Assoumou has also presented her findings at the National Academy of Sciences to the panel tasked with developing a National Strategy for the Elimination of Hepatitis B and C and at international scientific meetings such as IDWeek and the Conference on Retroviruses and Opportunistic Infections (CROI).

Dr. Assoumou graduated magna cum laude from Williams College and obtained her medical degree from the University of Rochester School of Medicine and Dentistry. She then completed a combined Internal Medicine/Pediatrics residency at Brown University and an Infectious Diseases Fellowship at Harvard University’s Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center where she was awarded the Finland Award for Research Excellence. She also earned a Masters of Public Health at the Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. Dr. Assoumou received an Excellence in Teaching Hospital-Based Faculty Award at BMC in 2017. She was also recognized as the Distinguished Faculty of the Month in April 2020 for her service to the BUSM community in teaching, service on committees, mentoring of students, trainees and junior faculty. The same year she also received a Department of Medicine Evans Junior Faculty Research Merit Award recognizing an outstanding record of scholarship and research. Dr. Assoumou’s impact on the medical campus and beyond culminated in 2021 in her installation as the inaugural Louis W. Sullivan, MD, Professor of Medicine which honors Dr. Sullivan’s contributions to his alma mater – Chobanian and Avedisian School of Medicine and to the medical field as former Health and Human Services Secretary and the first Dean of Morehouse Medical School. She is also a member of the 2024-2026 cohort of the New Voices Program at the National Academies of Science, Engineering and Medicine.

Dr. Assoumou has also contributed to COVID 19-related efforts as part of the NIH-funded Massachusetts Community Engagement Alliance (MA-CEAL), and the Commonwealth of Massachusetts’ “Trust the Facts, Get the Vax” public awareness campaign. Further, she was appointed by Mayor Michelle Wu to the City of Boston’s COVID-19 Advisory Committee. She has also become a trusted source for local, national and international news outlets such as BBC Worldwide, ABC Australia, NBC News, Reuters, Bloomberg, Newsweek, TIME, PBS, The Boston Globe, The Bay State Banner, Boston 25 as well as local NPR affiliates WBUR and WGBH.