Departmental Affiliations
Contact Info
Research Interests
Epidemiology; HIV; Women; Antiretroviral therapy; Injection drug users; HCV
Experiences & Accomplishments
Primary research interests include the epidemiology and pathogenesis of HIV/AIDS and the effects of HIV infection and treatment on women's reproductive health.
Dr. Topper is Principal Investigator of the data management and analysis center for both the MACS/WIHS-Combined Cohort Study, a multicenter prospective cohort study of over 5,000 older men and women with and without HIV in the US, and the Study of Treatment and Reproductive outcomes (STAR), a multicenter prospective cohort study of 2,000 women of reproductive age, with and without HIV in the US. She previously served as Data Center multi-PI for the Women's Interagency HIV Study (WIHS), the largest ongoing prospective cohort study of HIV among women in the U.S., as well as Director of the Epidemiology/Biostatistics Core for a NIH-funded program project to study HIV susceptibility and pathogenesis in the female genital tract. She was also co-investigator for the Center for the Analysis and Management of the Multicenter AIDS Cohort Study (MACS), a nationwide cohort study of HIV-infected and uninfected men, and with the Epidemiology/Biostatistics Core for the North American AIDS Cohort Collaboration of Research and Design (NA-ACCORD).
In addition to her research endeavors, Dr. Topper has taught courses in Epidemiologic methods since 2007, at both JHSPH as well as the Krieger School of Arts and Sciences. She has taught in face-to-face, online, and blended formats. She holds a Master of Education degree from Johns Hopkins, and is Director of the school's Online Programs for Applied Learning (OPAL), a suite of master's degree and post-baccalaureate certificate programs that are 100% online and offered part-time, in order to accommodate working professionals in public health. In addition, Dr. Topper serves as a member of both the school's Committee on Academic Standards and the Center for Teaching and Learning Advisory Board, as well as the University's Committee on Online and Part-Time Education and the Academic Programs Continuity Working Group.
Honors & Awards
2010 Elected Member, Delta Omega Honorary Society in Public Health, Alpha Chapter, Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health
2009 Awardee, National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Loan Repayment Program (renewal)
2008 Nominee, the Charles C. Shepard Science Award (Garfein RS, Golub ET, …, Thiede H. A peer-education intervention to reduce injection risk behaviors for HIV and hepatitis C virus infection in young injection drug users. AIDS 2007 Sept;21(14):1923-32)
2007 Awardee, National Institutes of Health Clinical Research Loan Repayment Program
2002 NIDA Director’s Travel Award, College on Problems of Drug Dependence 64th Annual Scientific Meeting, Quebec City, Quebec, Canada
2001 NIDA Director's Travel Award, College on Problems of Drug Dependence 63rd Annual Scientific Meeting, Scottsdale, Arizona
2001-2003 National Institute on Drug Abuse Institutional NRSA Postdoctoral Fellowship, Johns Hopkins University
Select Publications
Selected publications include:
Shitole SG, Lazar JM, Taub CC, Furlani AC, Konkle-Parker DJ, Dionne-Odom J, Fischl MA, Ofotokun I, Adimora AA, Topper EF, Golzar Y, Kassaye SG, Gustafson D, Anastos K, Hanna DB, Xue X, Tien PC, Kaplan RC, Kizer JR. Human Immunodeficiency Virus and Cardiac End-Organ Damage in Women: Findings From an Echocardiographic Study Across the United States. Clin Infect Dis. 2023 Jan 13;76(2):210-219. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac795. PMID: 36184972.
Collins LF, Christina Mehta C, Palella FJ, Fatade Y, Naggie S, Golub ET, Anastos K, French AL, Kassaye S, Taylor TN, Fischl MA, Adimora AA, Kempf MC, Tien PC, Sheth AN, Ofotokun I. The effect of menopausal status, age, and HIV on non-AIDS comorbidity burden among U.S. women. Clin Infect Dis. 2023 Feb 8;76(3):e755-8. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac465. Epub ahead of print. PMC10169392.
Price JC, Ma Y, Kuniholm MH, Adimora AA, Fischl M, French AL, Golub ET, Konkle-Parker D, Minkoff H, Ofotokun I, Plankey M, Sharma A, Tien PC. HIV is associated with elevated FibroScan-AST (FAST) score. Clin Infect Dis. 2022 Dec 19;75(12):2119-27. doi: 10.1093/cid/ciac337. PMC Journal in Progress.
Morton ZP, Christina Mehta C, Wang T, Palella FJ, Naggie S, Golub ET, Anastos K, French AL, Kassaye S, Taylor TN, Fischl MA, Adimora AA, Kempf MC, Tien PC, Ofotokun I, Sheth AN, Collins LF. Cumulative Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV)-1 Viremia Is Associated with Increased Risk of Multimorbidity Among US Women With HIV, 1997-2019. Open Forum Infect Dis. 2022 Dec 28;10(2):ofac702. doi: 10.1093/ofid/ofac702. PMC9897021.
Sheth AN, Adimora AA, Golub ET, Kassaye SG, Rana A, Westreich D, Cyriaque JW, Parish C, Konkle-Parker D, Jones DL, Kempf MC, Ofotokun I, Kanthula RM, Donohue J, Raccamarich P, Tisdale T, Ramirez C, Warren-Jeanpiere L, Tien PC, Alcaide ML. Study of Treatment and Reproductive Outcomes Among Reproductive-Age Women With HIV Infection in the Southern United States: Protocol for a Longitudinal Cohort Study. JMIR Res Protoc. 2021 Dec 20;10(12):e30398. doi: 10.2196/30398. PMC8726043.