Sean Bland is an assistant professor at the Santa Clara University School of Law and a scholar at the O’Neill Institute. His work in health law and policy focuses on legal and social issues that impact the health and wellbeing of marginalized communities, including racial and ethnic minorities, lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender, and queer (LGBTQ) people, people who engage in sex work, and people who use drugs.

Bland was a senior associate with the Infectious Diseases Initiative at the O’Neill Institute. He managed diverse projects to assist policymakers and HIV community stakeholders in assessing policy options for sustaining and adapting the Ryan White HIV/AIDS Program and implementing the National HIV/AIDS Strategy and high-impact HIV prevention. He also led projects on the deployment of pre-exposure prophylaxis (PrEP) among communities of color and adolescents, and the impact of laws and policies on the health and safety of people who engage in sex work.

Before joining the O’Neill Institute, Bland was a litigation associate at Fried, Frank, Harris, Shriver & Jacobson LLP in New York and Washington, D.C. He has also worked as a research associate at The Fenway Institute at Fenway Health, where he helped to coordinate research projects focused on social and behavioral factors affecting HIV transmission among gay and bisexual men and transgender individuals. Additionally, he has served as a law clerk with the U.S. Senate Committee on Health, Education, Labor, and Pensions, the American Psychological Association, and Lambda Legal, where he held the 2011 Tyron Garner Memorial Fellowship for African-American LGBT Civil Rights.

Bland holds a J.D. from the Georgetown University Law Center and a B.A. in psychology and German studies from Yale University.

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