Dr. Geng received his MD and MPH in Epidemiology from Columbia University, completed his internal medicine residency at Columbia University Medical Center, and fellowship in infectious diseases at the University of California, San Francisco. Dr. Geng joined WashU in 2019 and is currently a tenured Professor of Medicine in the Infectious Diseases Division. His research is focused on improving our understanding of healthcare and public health effectiveness, developing and implementing innovative person-centered strategies to improve healthcare delivery, and implementation and evaluation of evidence-based interventions.
Over the past 15 years, Dr. Geng’s research program has provided new fundamental insights in the areas of health systems improvement and implementation science to address improving outcomes for people living with HIV and other chronic conditions. His research has been transformational and improved healthcare delivery and health care outcomes for vulnerable patients with chronic conditions around the world.
He has conducted research in Kenya, Uganda, Zambia, Peru, and the United States, addressing HIV care, non-communicable diseases, and strengthening health systems. Dr. Geng has led, as PI or MPI, over 20 externally funded projects, resulting in over 300 publications and an H-index of 62. His work generated high impact evidence that informed WHO guidelines, shaped UNAIDS estimates of the global HIV epidemic, informed US government policy, and contributed to international training and advocacy efforts. Together, this body of work in implementation science and health services research provided important high-quality data that demonstrated the gaps between evidence and practice and demonstrated the efficacy of specific interventions to reduce those gaps.
Under Dr. Geng's leadership, the Center for Dissemination and Implementation created training programs, including implementation research concentrations in both the Master's in Clinical Investigation program and contributed to the creation of the PhD program in Public Health. The Center provides working meetings, mock grant reviews, intensive proposal "bootcamps," and on-demand consultations. These services reached over 800 faculty, staff, and students per year and helped generate $35 million in external funding annually.
Dr. Geng is deeply committed to mentoring and training the next generation of implementation researchers. Over the past 15 years, he has mentored nearly 40 pre- and post-doctoral trainees, of whom 19 have successfully obtained NIH or foundation career development awards. In 2020, he founded the HIV, Infectious Diseases, and Global Health Implementation Research Training Institute (HIGH-IRI), which has rapidly become one of the premier implementation research training programs globally. Dr. Geng also leads the Midwest Center for AIDS Research (D-CFAR), one of 17 NIAID-funded Centers for AIDS Research and the first in the lower Midwest. By building regional capacity for high-quality HIV research and strengthening connections between researchers and public health practitioners, the D-CFAR catalyzes improvements in HIV prevention, care, and treatment across the region.
Dr. Geng is internationally recognized for service at the highest levels of global health governance and policy. He has served on WHO guideline development groups for HIV and is currently a member of the WHO Guideline Review Committee, which reviews all guidance issued across WHO departments. He also serves on the Scientific Advisory Board for PEPFAR, the U.S. government's global HIV initiative, where he contributes strategic guidance at the interface of evidence, policy, and practice. He served as an academic editor at PLOS Medicine and is co-Editor-in-Chief of Implementation Science Communications.
