天美传媒

Patricia E. Molina, MD, PhD, is the Richard Ashman Professor and Head of Physiology, and Director of the Alcohol and Drug Abuse Center at LSU Health Sciences Center New Orleans鈥� School of Medicine.  Dr. Molina's training as a physician prior to completing training in physiology provides her with a unique systems approach to study the biomedical consequences of chronic heavy alcohol use, with emphasis on the pathophysiological mechanisms that aggravate HIV disease progression. Her research focuses on the interaction of chronic alcohol consumption on progression of HIV disease in preclinical models and in translational studies.  Her research involves integrating in vivo with ex vivo approaches to understand the contribution of organ systems to disease pathogenesis. Another area of research interest and ongoing investigations is the interaction of alcohol with outcomes from traumatic brain injury. Her work examines the mechanisms that lead to greater alcohol drinking during the post-injury phase, and the potential role of the endocannabinoid system in modulating those responses. Dr. Molina is interested in translating research findings to the community at large, and in educating the lay public on the consequences of excessive alcohol consumption. This is particularly relevant to young students and parents as they make decisions on alcohol drinking throughout their life.

Dr. Ralph Hingson is the Director of the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).  Before joining NIAAA, he was Professor and Associate Dean for Research at the Boston University School of Public Health.  He has authored or co-authored 170 research articles and book chapters, including studies of the effects of: (1) Raising the legal drinking age, (2) Zero tolerance laws for drivers under 21, (3) .08% legal blood alcohol limits for adult drivers, (4) comprehensive community programs to reduce alcohol problems, (5) early drinking onset on alcohol dependence, traffic crashes, unintentional injuries and physical fights after drinking, as well as 6) assessments of morbidity and mortality associated with underage drinking, drinking by U.S. college students ages 18-24, and interventions to reduce both underage and college drinking.  Dr. Hingson currently serves on the World Health Organization coordinating council to implement WHO鈥檚 global strategic plan to reduce the harmful use of alcohol. 

In recognition of his research contributions, the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation honored Dr. Hingson in 2001 with its Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Award.  In 2002, he received the Widmark Award, the highest award bestowed by the International Council on Alcohol Drugs and Traffic Safety (ICADTS). Dr. Hingson is a Past President of ICADTS.  In 2003, Mothers Against Drunk Driving instituted the Ralph W. Hingson Research in Practice Annual Presidential Award, with Dr. Hingson honored as its first recipient.  In 2008, the American Society of Addiction Medicine conferred the R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Scientist Award to Dr. Hingson. In 2014, he received the University of Pittsburgh Legacy Laureate Award. In 2016, he received ICADTS鈥� Borkenstein Award for 鈥淥utstanding contributions to international cooperation in alcohol and drug related traffic safety programs.鈥� In September of 2017, Dr. Hingson will receive will receive a National Institutes of Health (NIH) 2017 Director's Award for his role as a member of the Surgeon General's Report Team for the recently-released Surgeon General鈥檚 Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. 

Kenneth J. Sher, Ph.D., is a nationally renowned scholar, researcher, and mentor whose work has greatly advanced our understanding of the etiology and course of alcohol use disorder (AUD), particularly as it relates to personality traits and their evolution. Dr. Sher has been at the forefront of research on personality, alcohol misuse among college students, and the behavioral pharmacology of alcohol. He is also a highly regarded expert in longitudinal research methodology. Over the course of his career, Dr. Sher has studied a wide range of topics contributing substantially to our understanding of the development of alcohol and other substance misuse. He has examined risk mechanisms that influence AUD onset and progression, premorbid predictors of future AUD (e.g., cognitive mechanisms and individual differences in the psychopharmacological responses to alcohol), and the involvement of family history of alcoholism in multiple etiological pathways to AUDs. 

His diverse research interests include: personality, as well as developmental changes in personality, as predictors of alcohol misuse and AUD; gene-environment interactions in the development of AUD; and predictors and consequences of binge drinking and alcohol misuse among college students (including 21st birthday drinking and other extreme drinking occasions). Dr. Sher has also investigated the phenomenon of 鈥渕aturing out鈥� of alcohol problems, demonstrating that maturing out is associated with differences in age-related personality changes that are accompanied by decreased impulsivity and neuroticism and is not merely a consequence of constrained opportunity occasioned by the assumption of adult roles. 

Dr. Sher had led two major ongoing longitudinal cohort studies that have followed individuals beginning in their freshman year of college and into mid-life. In addition to the development of AUD, this research tracks drug use and comorbid psychiatric disorders. A particularly innovative aspect of this work is the incorporation of genotyping which may provide key information on individual differences in susceptibility to AUD. 

In addition to using traditional survey approaches, Dr. Sher鈥檚 research employs event-based data to capture the momentary moods, motivational states, and cues that precede drinking events. This work is critical to understanding transient influences on drinking behavior and related consequences on a given occasion. 

A major focus of his current work is the critical evaluation of existing diagnostic approaches and development of empirically-based criteria and algorithms for AUD diagnosis. This research holds promise for improving AUD diagnosis in clinical practice, and advancing research on the causes and correlates of AUD.

Dr. Sher has been continually funded by NIAAA for more than 30 years. He has had more than 250 papers published in peer-reviewed journals and he has authored and edited several books. 

Dr. Sher earned his undergraduate degree from Antioch College, his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Indiana University, and completed clinical internship training at Brown University. He is the Curators鈥� Distinguished Professor of Psychological Sciences at the University of Missouri, where he directs a pre and postdoctoral training program in alcohol research.

Tom Greenfield, PhD, is Scientific Director of the Public Health Institute鈥檚 Alcohol Research Group, in Emeryville California, which involves 15 multi-disciplinary research scientists bringing a broad range of expertise to bear on alcohol, other drug and mental health problems.  Since 1995 Greenfield led and now co-lead the bi-decadal National Alcohol Surveys (NASs) conducted by the NIAAA-funded National Alcohol Research Center, that he directed from 1999 to 2015 (P50 AA005595, Years 20-35). Over time, the NAS has incorporated measures and interview modalities that he helped refine in a series of methodological studies.  Greenfield trained as a clinical psychologist, afterwards adding epidemiological and health services expertise in part through postdoctoral years at the UCSF Department of Psychiatry.  Educated at Caltech, MIT and the University of Michigan, he has authored or coauthored over 250 peer-reviewed articles, chapters, books and monographs.  Many are on health effects of alcohol and alcohol policy, often in collaboration with senior colleagues, early career scientists, and postdoctoral fellows.  In addition to participating in many national and international projects, Dr. Greenfield has led numerous R-mechanism National Institutes of Health projects on such topics as alcohol policy evaluation, health disparities and alcohol-related mortality, alcohol intake measurement, and comparative cross-national studies.  He currently leads two team-based Alcohol's Harms to Others R01 grants funded by NIAAA. One, together with his ARG colleague Dr. Katherine Karriker-Jaffe, examines ways that secondhand drinking can victimize partners, families, children, coworkers, and communities, using metrics such as the damage to mental health, health quality of life, and a family鈥檚 finances.  A second is a similar multinational collaboration involving standardized questionnaires in over 30 countries that surveyed victims and perpetrators of alcohol鈥檚 harms, and involves multiple PIs and 15 international co-investigators.  Both grants are examining in depth state and national policies, contextual, and protective influences, and ways to best reduce the toll of alcohol鈥檚 harms to communities.  

Selected recent publications:
Wilsnack, S.C., Greenfield, T.K., Bloomfield, K.A., (in press). The GENAHTO Project (Gender and Alcohol's Harm to Others): design and methods for a multinational study of alcohol's harm to persons other than the drinker. International Journal of Alcohol & Drug Research.
Greenfield, T. K. & Martinez, P. (2017) Alcohol as a risk factor for chronic disease: raising awareness and policy options. In: Giesbrecht, N. & Bosma, L. (Eds.), Preventing Alcohol-Related Problems: Evidence and Community-based Initiatives (pp 33-50). Washington, DC: APHA Press.
Greenfield, T.K., Ye, Y., Lown, E.A., Cherpitel, C.J., Zemore, S., & Borges, G. (2017) Alcohol use patterns and DSM-5 alcohol use disorder on both sides of the US-Mexico border. Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research 41:769-778. [DOI: 10.1111/acer.13356] PMICD: PMC5378627 
Greenfield, T.K., Karriker-Jaffe, K.J., Kerr, W.C., Ye, Y., & Kaplan, L.M. (2016) Those harmed by others鈥� drinking are more depressed and distressed, Drug and Alcohol Review, 35(1):22-29 [doi: 10.1111/dar.12324]. PMCID: PMC4775452
Greenfield, T.K., Bond J., Kerr W.C. (2014) Biomonitoring for improving alcohol consumption surveys: the new gold standard? Alcohol Research: Current Reviews 36(1): 39-44. PMCID: PMC4432857
Greenfield, T. K. (2013) [Editorial] Alcohol (and other drugs) in public health research. American Journal of Public Health 103(4):582.

M. Dolores Cimini is a New York State licensed psychologist who has provided leadership for comprehensive efforts in research-to-practice translation at the University at Albany since 1992 with over $9 million in support from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), U.S. Department of Education, U.S. Department of Justice, and New York State Office of Addiction Services and Supports. The screening and brief intervention program developed by Dr. Cimini, the STEPS Comprehensive Alcohol Screening and Brief Intervention Program, has earned 13 national awards for best practices and innovation in behavioral health care. 

Cimini is the director of the Middle Earth Peer Assistance Program at UAlbany, an agency recognized as a model/exemplary program in alcohol and other drug prevention by both the U.S. Department of Education and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. She has published two books and numerous professional articles in both national and international refereed journals in the alcohol and substance use field and has earned two awards for excellence from the White House for her contributions to STEM mentoring. Cimini is a member of the Commission on Accreditation of the American Psychological Association and was the Past Chair of the APA Board for the Advancement of Psychology in the Public Interest, where she has had leadership for reviewing and disseminating APA鈥檚 practice standards focused on serving diverse and underrepresented groups and the addressing of issues related to psychology and social justice.

Michael Siegel is a Professor in the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. His research focuses in the areas of guns/firearms, alcohol and tobacco as they relate to public health. Tying this work together is the study of corporate influences on health--especially advertising and marketing--and strategies to counteract them. More recently, his research has focused on racial inequities in health and the role of structural racism in causing these inequities. His teaching has primarily been in the areas of public health advocacy, social and behavioral sciences in public health, social marketing, and health communication. 

Montes' research involves investigating correlates and consequences of substance use (e.g., alcohol, marijuana, tobacco use) as well as behavioral addictions such as gambling. His research has also focused on investigating moderation as a viable treatment goal in substance use recovery. He is interested in exploring the viability of targeting individuals' treatment seeking self-efficacy as a mechanism to reduce the treatment gap and increase treatment seeking for a substance use disorder.
Montes is a consulting editor of the American Psychological Association (APA) journal and has published more than 30 manuscripts in peer-reviewed journals. He has also received a Mentored Research Scientist Career Development Award for $866,000 from the National Institutes of Health.

Thomas Stopka is an Epidemiologist and Professor with the Department of Public Health and Community Medicine at Tufts University School of Medicine. Through his research, Dr. Stopka explores the interconnectedness of substance use, social and behavioral risk factors, and overdose and infectious disease outcomes among high-risk and often hidden populations through community-engaged, interdisciplinary, multi-methods, applied epidemiological research studies. His major research interests focus on the overlap substance use, infectious disease (HCV, HIV, and STIs), and opioid overdose. He employs qualitative, biostatistical, geographic information systems (GIS), spatial epidemiological, and laboratory approaches in his studies to assess the risk landscape, access to health services, and implement and test public health and clinical interventions to address health disparities. Stopka is currently a multi-Principal Investigator (MPI) on three National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded studies that aim to: 1) Predict future opioid overdoses in Massachusetts employing Bayesian spatiotemporal models to inform pre-emptive public health responses; 2) determine the best timing for extended-release medications (XR-Buprenorphine) for opioid use disorder among incarcerated people in Massachusetts; and 3) assess the effectiveness of a mobile telemedicine-based hepatitis C treatment intervention among rural people who inject drugs. He is also a Co-Investigator on the National Institute of Health (NIH)-funded HEALing Communities Study to reduce opioid overdose deaths in Massachusetts, in which he is leading GIS and spatial epidemiological analyses. These and other studies that Stopka is working on employ: 1) ethnographic and qualitative approaches to assess contextual factors tied to salient exposures and outcomes of interest and to generate hypotheses; 2) innovative epidemiological, legal, and policy scans to assess substance use-related morbidity and mortality and health services landscape; 3) spatiotemporal methods to explore the distribution of measures that affect risk, and to determine the geolocation of and access to current services, as well as gaps; and, 4) Bayesian spatiotemporal dynamic modeling approaches to inform small area forecasting of opioid-related mortality.