He began working in the field of HIV as a part-time statistician at the UCLA Chicano Studies Research Center and was the first to examine the geographic distribution of HIV/AIDS cases among Latinos living in Los Angeles County in relation to available HIV/AIDS services within the County’s health districts. After receiving his doctoral degree in Urban Planning, he accepted a research fellowship in the Department of Epidemiology at the UCLA Fielding School of Public Health. There he began his HIV research career examining cultural characteristics as predictors of HIV risk behaviors among Latino men with support from the UCLA Center for AIDS Research (CFAR) and AIDS Institute. As a bicultural Mexican-American gay man, Ron has continued to focus his research on HIV disparities affecting racial and ethnic sexual minority men.