Team Members

Victor R. Dukay, Ph.D., M.B.A., President and Project Director , founded the Lundy Foundation, a tax-exempt 501(c)(3) public operating charity based in Denver, Colorado, in 1991. The Lundy Foundation supports the building of collaborative leadership and the strengthening of organizational capacity in nonprofits seeking to meet the social challenges of our changing world. Dr. Dukay formerly served as president and chief executive officer of the ALTUS Holding Group, a provider of executive jet leasing services. Dr. Dukay’s extensive experience in the aviation industry includes consulting on equity financing and leveraged buyouts of aviation-related companies and negotiating corporate acquisitions. Dr. Dukay is a graduate of Notre Dame University, where he majored in economics. He received his MBA, MA and PhD (Human Communications) from the University of Denver. He has twice received the University of Denver's annual award for Contributions to the Improvement of Teamwork and Collaboration.

Harryl Hollingsworth, M.A., Project Manager and Co-Principal Investigator, is an instructional design specialist and writer whose areas of expertise include instructional design and development, needs assessment, training, evaluation, distance learning and grant writing. For the Mayor’s Office of Denver, Colorado, she conducted a six-county needs assessment to determine the housing and services needs for people living with HIV/AIDS and was responsible for survey design and implementation, focus group facilitation, logistics management, and development of the final report. She recently developed a curriculum for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), focusing on hepatitis prevention, treatment and counseling within the public health sector.

Dr. Sylvia Kaaya, Co-Principal Investigator, serves as the Head of the Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Muhimbili University College of Health Sciences (Dar es Salaam, Tanzania-East Africa) . Dr. Kaaya holds a Doctor of Medicine, Master of Science in Medicine, and a Diploma in Psychiatry. Supported by Carnegie Foundation grants, she has completed two fellowship programs in Health and Behavior through Harvard Medical School. Areas of expertise include epidemiology, adolescent sexuality, biostatistics and health services research. She is a member of the Advisory Committee of the National Mental Health Programme (Tanzania), Secretary of the Social Science and Medicine Programme of the University of Dar es Salaam, and serves as a representative of the Academic Board in the Academic Appointments Committee. Dr. Kaaya is a member of the Medical Association of Tanzania, as well as a founding member and treasurer of the Mental Health Association of Tanzania.

Laurie Larson, M.S.S., Data Analyst, is a researcher at OMNI Research and Training, Inc., in Denver, Colorado. Ms. Larson’s areas of expertise include evaluation planning and design, quantitative and qualitative data analysis, report writing and project management. Her work in research and program evaluation spans many areas, including substance abuse prevention and treatment, juvenile delinquency prevention, and homelessness. She has been involved in statewide efforts to track process and outcome data related to service delivery of prevention programming, and has overseen the evaluation of program effectiveness for service providers.

Carl E. Larson, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, is a retired professor of Human Communication Studies and past Dean of Social Sciences at the University of Denver, and an expert in evaluative methodology. Dr. Larson is a recognized authority on teamwork and collaboration, and frequently consults with private and public sector organizations including Baxter Healthcare, Merrill Lynch, NASA, Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Environmental Protection Agency and more than 50 others. Author of seven books and numerous professional articles on communication, including his most recent book entitled, When Teams Work Best, published by Sage Publications in 2001. His book, Collaborative Leadership—How Citizens and Civic Leaders Can Make a Difference (with David Chrislip), published by Jossey-Bass in 1994, reports research results on successful collaborative projects and their leadership.

Claude Mellins, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychology, Departments of Psychiatry and Sociomedical Sciences, Columbia University, NY, NY. Dr. Mellins has served as a consultant to the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), Office of AIDS Research, on issues related to Pediatric AIDS. She is a member of the neurodevelopment sub-committee of the Women and Infants Transmission Study, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, NY, NY; and a member of the Coordinating Center (P.I. James Bell) for a multi-site HIV-AIDS Cost Study funded by SAMHSA, NIMH, NIDA, and HRSA. Dr. Mellins serves as Supervisor of Neurodevelopment, Women and Children’s Care Center, Columbia-Presbyterian Medical Center, NY, NY; and as a Psychologist in Psychiatry, St. Luke’s Roosevelt Hospital Center, NY, NY.

Furaha Nsemwa, In-Country Director (Tanzania-East Africa), serves on the Board of Directors of Godfrey’s Children, a Tanzanian youth-organized NGO focusing on the welfare of orphaned and vulnerable children. Mr. Nsemwa coordinated the hiring of Tanzanian evaluation team members, translation of survey instruments, and financial record-keeping for the evaluation project. He recently completed coursework in the accounting program at the Institute of Finance Management (Dar es Salaam).

Dr. Fausta Maliti Philip, Co-Principal Investigator, is a psychiatrist at Muhimbili National Hospital, Dar es Salaam, Tanzania, where she focuses on clinical work with children and adolescents. Dr. Fausta holds a Doctor of Medicine and a M.Med in Psychiatry. Dr. Philip served as Principal Investigator in developing the Working Report Measuring HIV stigma: Results of a field test in Tanzania, in partnership with ICRW, MUCHS, and SYNERGY.

Jennifer Thompson, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, is an expert in human communications studies with a concentration in intercultural, cross-cultural and interracial communication. She served as an instructor at the University of Denver, The Women’s College, Denver, Colorado, focusing on Topics in Conflict, Culture and Communication.

Allan Wallis, Ph.D., Co-Principal Investigator, is associate professor of public policy at the Graduate School of Public Affairs, University of Colorado at Denver, where he directs the concentration on local governments and teaches courses on leadership and ethics, urban social problems, urban politics, and growth management. He has served as Interim Director of the Wirth Chair in Sustainable Environmental and Community Development, director of the Ph.D. program in public affairs, and as director of research for the National Civic League. Dr. Wallis facilitated the development of a comprehensive HIV/AIDS Service Plan for the State of Colorado and the Denver metropolitan area, as well as the Colorado Comprehensive Asthma Plan. He also was co-principal investigator in developing a handbook for conducting needs assessments in Colorado for those infected and affected by HIV/AIDS.