Laura Thomas has joined DPA as the Deputy State Director, San Francisco, where she oversees DPA's Model City Initiative for San Francisco. She brings to DPA 20 years of experience in HIV and public health policy, along with a strong commitment to community advocacy, thoughtful policy analysis, and coalition building.

Thomas first became involved in AIDS as an activist with ACT UP in San Francisco. Most recently, she was a consultant specializing in HIV policy and planning, with clients ranging from the California State Office of AIDS to the National Association of People with AIDS. Before that she worked for Tenderloin Health and Continuum HIV Day Services, nonprofit health and social service providers serving a predominantly homeless population in San Francisco's Tenderloin neighborhood, and for the San Francisco Department of Public Health.

Thomas has been a needle exchange volunteer for over ten years, and helped organize San Francisco's successful symposium on safe injection facilities last year.  She is proud to have received the AIDS Hero Award from the 2000 AIDS Candlelight Memorial. She is the Chair of the Board of Directors for WORLD -- Women Organizing to Respond to Life-threatening Disease -- and also serves on the Board of the Asian & Pacific Islander Wellness Center in San Francisco. She has a Masters in Public Health and a Masters in Public Policy from UC Berkeley, and a BA from Wesleyan University.

"I am thrilled to be joining DPA. I love San Francisco, and believe we can succeed at having the most progressive drug policies in the country here. I'm glad to have the chance to be a part of it," she says.