Rachel Gicquelais
Credentials: PhD, MPH
Position title: Assistant Professor of Population Health Sciences & Department of Medicine Infectious Disease
Email: gicquelais@wisc.edu
Address:
WARF Building
610 Walnut Street
Dr. Rachel Gicquelais is an Assistant Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison School of Medicine and Public Health. She is a substance use epidemiologist and faculty member in the Department of Population Health Sciences and in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Disease. She has a PhD and MPH in epidemiology from the University of Michigan School of Public Health and completed her postdoctoral fellowship in HIV epidemiology at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Dr. Gicquelais’ research is situated in the context of the US overdose crisis and her work aims to develop and disseminate interventions to prevent drug overdose and improve the health and well-being of people who use drugs. She is particularly interested in harm reduction approaches and tools (such as naloxone), which seek to reduce risk of drug overdose, infectious diseases like HIV and hepatitis C, and other health conditions during periods of active drug use by “meeting people where they are at” using person-centered and nonjudgmental approaches. This focus on harm reduction has led Dr. Gicquelais’ conducts her research in partnership with people who use drugs and harm reduction organizations that serve them, including syringe services programs, using community-engaged approaches.
Dr. Gicquelais has several ongoing projects. She is a Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) of the ENHANCE Project, which is evaluating how engaging with person-centered syringe services programs reduces drug overdose risk and improves health. A second line of research focuses on solitary drug use (i.e., using drugs while alone) and tools to reduce risk of fatal overdose in this situation. A third line of research involves developing, testing, and disseminating mobile health-based harm reduction tools.
Dr. Gicquelais is a Multiple Principal Investigator of the ENHANCE Project: https://enhanceproject.wisc.edu/
View Dr. Gicquelais’ publications on NCBI My Bibliography.
Research Interests
- Substance use epidemiology
- Infectious disease epidemiology, especially HIV and hepatitis C
- Drug overdose prevention
- Harm reduction approaches and tools
Courses Taught
- POP HLTH 820: Graduate Research Seminar (Spring 2025)
- Coming 2025-2026 Academic Year: Social & Behavioral Epidemiology
Affiliations / Associations
- College on Problems of Drug Dependence
- Society for Epidemiologic Research