Goulda A. Downer, PhD, FAND, CNS, LN, RD

Goulda A. Downer, PhD, FAND, CNS, LN, RD is an Associate Professor in the College of Medicine at Howard University. Currently, she heads the Howard University Telehealth Training Center (the Center), which is tasked with developing and managing a national eLearning technology training program. The Center is designed to help strengthen the U.S. HIV clinical workforce and provide culturally competent clinical care within racial and ethnic minority communities. The goal is to reduce the HIV disparity burden on these communities. The Center builds on two previous successful federally funded multi-million-dollar National Centers which Dr. Downer designed, implemented, and directed with a consortium of national partners. 

During the past decade, Dr. Downer has expanded her portfolio to include emergency preparedness and disaster management. She has served as an instructor for the Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) Emergency Management Institute’s (EMI) “Integrating Emergency Management Education into Your Institution.” She has also conducted joint venture activities with Boston University’s Healthcare Emergency Management Program. This included the development and conduct of a “hybrid” exercise for the Uniformed Health Services Medical School.

Dr. Downer has served as a subject matter expert in Food Security and Food Aid and Emergency/Disaster relief for the United States Agency for International Development. She has also lectured internationally on the Importance of Cultural Competency in Emergency and Disaster Response as well as on the Intersectionality of HIV and Disaster Management.  She is a Co-Founder of the Historically Black Colleges and Universities (HBCU) Emergency Management Consortium. The consortium’s primary aim is to introduce students to the field of emergency and disaster management, and in so doing, strengthen the current national workforce by diversifying it.

In 2019, Dr. Downer successfully completed the US Federal Emergency Management Agency’s (FEMA) National Emergency Management Advanced Academy (NEMAA). She is also a national Community Emergency Response Team (CERT) trainer and manager. She authored the chapter on “How Climate Change Directly Affects Food and Nutrition Security” in the 2018/2019 edition of the Caribbean/Latin America Disaster Readiness Manual and “Climate Change and the Caribbean: Strengthening Preparedness Measures” in the 2021/2022 edition. Her recent publication of relevance is, “Do Individuals Living with HIV know how to Access Resources in order to Safeguard their Health in the Event of Statewide Emergency Situations?”

Prior to her faculty appointment at Howard, Dr. Downer served as an Assistant Clinical Professor and Director of Public Health Nutrition in the Department of Pediatrics at  Georgetown University Medical School; as the Director of Medical Education for the National Organization on Fetal Alcohol Syndrome; as Nutrition Faculty in the School of Public Health and Health Services at George Washington University; and as a national food security and nutrition expert for  the U.S. Department of Justice.