Aracelis Quinones

Areas of Expertise: Substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, Hep C, homelessness, the LGBT+ community, Spanish speaking and Latino communities, event planning, public speaking, group coordination & facilitation

Bio: Aracelis Quinones is the Coordinator of Poder Latino (Latino Power), a group for people living with HIV/AIDS, and a woman living with HIV for the past 34 years. She is passionate about her work with underserved and Spanish-speaking HIV+ communities. After moving from Puerto Rico to New York, she started working in the social services field with the Coalition for Hispanic Family Services in Brooklyn where she assisted facilitating an HIV positive women’s group and advocated for clients’ rights. Aside from her work as a coordinator with Poder Latino, one of the longest-lived HIV education and support programs with Latinos in the U.S, since 1998 she has worked with the Latino Commission on AIDS, advocating and fighting HIV stigma. In her spare time, she loves to spend time with family and friends, cooking, doing research on the internet, and giving a hand to those in need, especially women living with HIV.

Experience:

• HIV counselor and group coordinator with Latino Commission on AIDS, 2000-present
• Workshop facilitator- Voces Latinas, 2015-present
• Group facilitator with Iris House, 2017-present
• Panelist on social determinants of health at AcademyHealth Annual Research Meeting, 2022
• Webinar presenter “Thriving and surviving after a medical diagnosis: Strategies for patients and providers” – National Center for Complex Health and Social Needs, 2022
• Workshop presenter at Putting Care at the Center, 2022
• Panelist on ‘internalized stigma” at Howard University’s International Conference on Stigma, 2022
• Center for Disease Control & Prevention (CDC) Community Ambassador, 2022
• HIV Ambassador with ViiV Healthcare, 2020
• Peer Specialist with Harlem United, 2014-2018
• Consumer spotlight: A busy and exciting end to 2021, 2022