Luis Mares, LMSW

Luis A. Mares, LMSW is the Director of Community Mobilization programs at the Latino Commission on AIDS, working in the planning, developing, and implementing of the National Awareness campaigns: National Latino AIDS Awareness Day (NLAAD) and National Hispanic Hepatitis Awareness Day (NHHAD), with which the Commission coordinates efforts nationwide with partners in every state and US territory to provide education, outreach, training, and create awareness in the Latino community in the HIV and Hepatitis area. Luis is also an NYU Silver School of Social Work Field Supervisor for 2 nd year MSW Interns.

Luis is also part of the End the Epidemic (ETE) Non-English Speaking, New Immigrants and Migrant Farmworkers advisory subcommittee for the New York State Department of Health AIDS Institute, the AIDS United Community Mobilization Subcommittee, the NYC AIDS World Day Event Planning Committee, the HepFree NYC LGBT Committee, the NYC Hepatitis Awareness Event Planning Committee, and the NYC Latino Immigration Rapid Response Coalition Initiative Committee.

Luis began his professional career as an MD in his native Peru, where he graduated from Universidad Peruana Cayetano Heredia Medical School in 1993. Luis passed the ECFMG exams in 1995-1996 and then moved to New York City in 1997. Almost immediately started to work in the HIV/AIDS field and from 1998 to 2012 he worked helping the homeless community infected with HIV, initially as the Health Care Coordinator and then as the Program Director at the Jamaica Transitional Housing Program located at the Jamaica YMCA in Queens, acting as the Director of the Residence Department for the Jamaica YMCA at the same time.

Luis received his Master in Social Work in 2017 from New York University and joined the Latino Commission on AIDS.