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Invited Speakers

Eric F. Wagner, Ph.D.

Dr. Wagner is a Professor in the Stempel College of Public Health and Social Work at Florida International University, where he directs the Community-Based Intervention Research Group (C-BIRG).  Dr. Wagner earned his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, and is a licensed psychologist in the States of Florida and Rhode Island.  Dr. Wagner’s interests are in the areas of adolescent substance abuse, the empirical evaluation of community-based psychotherapeutic interventions, and developing and testing developmentally sensitive interventions for minority teens. His research has been supported by grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA).  Dr. Wagner was recognized for his early career achievements with the New Investigator Award from the Sixth International Conference on Treatment of Addictive Behaviors, as well as being selected to present at the Symposium in Honor of Enoch Gordis at the 25th Annual Scientific Meeting of the Research Society on Alcoholism.  Dr. Wagner is the creator and director of the DIONYSUS meeting.

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Joseph West, Ph.D.

Dr. West is Dean, School of Hospitality and Tourism Management, Florida International University. He received his Bachelor of Science in Hotel Administration from Cornell University, Master of Science in Systems Management from the University of Southern California, and Doctor of Philosophy in Hotel, Restaurant and Institutional Management from Virginia Polytechnic and State University. He has consulted for such varied organizations as the United Nations (strategic planning for tourism in emerging countries), the U. S. Army (morale and recreation facilities management), Kentucky Fried Chicken Corporation (franchise operations), Barnett Bank, Inc. (foodservice facilities design and operation), and the St. Augustine (Florida) Tourism Development Council (service employee development). Dean West has made many international, national, and regional presentations, and has published numerous articles in leading industry and academic journals, including chapters in three books: Hospitality Management: An Introduction to the Industry; International Hospitality Management: Corporate Strategy in Practice; and Service Quality in Hospitality Organizations. In 2004 he was honored as the Educator of the Year by the Florida Hotel and Motel Association; in 2005, he was listed among "Florida Hospitality's Most Influential People" by the Florida Restaurant & Lodging Association; and, in 2006 he was recognized by the South Florida Business Journal as a "Heavy Hitter in South Florida Education."

 

Opening Speaker

 

Peter Monti, Ph.D.

Dr. Peter Monti is a Donald G. Millar Distinguished Professor of Alcohol and Addiction Studies, the Director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University, a Senior Career Research Scientist for the Department of Veterans Affairs, and the current President of the Research Society on Alcoholism. A recognized leader in understanding the biobehavioral mechanisms that underlie addictive behavior as well as its prevention and treatment, Dr. Monti has trained hundreds of students, primarily psychology interns and postdoctoral fellows. He has approximately 250 publications, and recently completed two books: Treating Alcohol Dependence: A Coping Skills Training Guide and The Tobacco Dependence Treatment Handbook: A Guide to Best Practices. He is PI on three major NIH research grants: 1. a basic mechanisms project concerning how a pharmacological agent affects craving for alcohol in the natural environment; 2. a trauma unit assessment and brief intervention project that incorporates significant others into the treatment; and, 3. an adolescent smoking intervention project that focuses on promotion of both intrinsic and extrinsic motivation to change. An additional Department of Veterans Affairs Merit Review Program grant focuses on olanzapine and cue reactivity. Dr. Monti was appointed chair of NIAAA's Portfolio Review Committee - a committee charged with helping to chart the course for the Alcohol Institute for the next decade; he also is a member of NIAAA's Extramural Advisory Board and its National Advisory Council.  In 2003 he was awarded the Distinguished Research Award from the American Psychological Association and in 2006 he was awarded the Distinguished Researcher Award from the Research Society on Alcoholism.

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Invited National Speakers

 

Michie Hesselbrock, MSW, Ph.D.

Dr. Hesselbrock is the Zachs Professor and Director of the Doctoral Program for the School of Social Work at the University of Connecticut.  She has more than 20 years of experience in teaching and research, much of it in the areas of behavioral genetics and epidemiology of alcohol and other drugs of abuse. Her areas of specializations include psychiatric epidemiology, substance use disorders, and mental health research, with special focus in gender and ethnic differences and co-occurring disorders, and the evaluation of prevention and intervention programs in substance abuse.

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Victor M. Hesselbrock, MSW, Ph.D.

Dr. Hesselbrock holds the Physicians' Health Services Endowed Chair in Addiction Studies at the University of Connecticut, and is Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of UConn’s NIAAA funded Alcohol Research Center.  Dr. Hesselbrock has developed a program of research focused on the identification of psychological and biological factors that contribute to the susceptibility for developing alcohol problems, including alcohol dependence. His current projects include a study of the deviance-proneness model of alcoholism vulnerability, a study of alcohol dependence phenotypes among Alaskan Natives, and two studies related to the genetics of substance dependence. He serves as an associate editor for Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, is an assistant editor for Addiction, and is on the editorial boards of several other addictions journals.  He has also served on and chaired several NIH study sections and is currently a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA).  Dr. Hesselbrock is immediate Past President of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA).

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James Jaccard, Ph.D.

Dr. Jaccard is a Professor of Psychology at Florida International University. He was trained as a social psychologist in the field of attitude formation and attitude change and has conducted extensive research in the prevention of adolescent alcohol use.  He was a major designer/ investigator of the National Longitudinal Study of Health (Add Health), the largest social-science based health survey of adolescents ever conducted in the United States. Dr. Jaccard has designed several effective interventions that teach parents how to communicate with their children about alcohol and is the primary architect (with Dr. Robert Turrisi) of a college program aimed at reducing binge drinking in college youth. He has an extensive background in psychometrics and statistical methods, and an active research program in statistics. Dr. Jaccard has written numerous books and articles on the analysis of interaction effects in a wide range of statistical models, and teaches advanced graduate courses on SEM and logistic regression. The author of five books and over 100 journal articles, he has been awarded over $4.5 million in support from research organizations including NIMH and NIAAA over the last ten years. His findings and insights are now instrumental in defining theory and practice in efforts to reduce adolescent pregnancy and drunk driving by adolescents.

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Mitchell Karno, Ph.D.

Dr. Karno received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology, University of California, Santa Barbara.  He is an Associate Research Psychologist in the University of California at Los Angeles’ Department of Psychiatry and is the Director of Alcohol Studies.  Dr. Karno's primary research areas include patient-treatment matching, mechanisms of action in psychotherapy treatment for alcoholism, and screening for alcohol problems.  Dr. Karno is Principal Investigator for multiple studies funded by the National Institutes of Health, including a study to assess which types of therapist interventions are most and least effective for different patients during alcohol treatment, and a study to examine factors associated with help-seeking and change in substance use in the general population.

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Alan R. Lang, Ph.D.

Dr. Lang is the R. Robert von Brüning Professor of Psychology at Florida State University.  His research focuses on psychosocial aspects of addictions, specifically the important antecedents and consequences of drinking, and the brain-behavior processes that underlie them.   Among his ongoing investigations are: (a) laboratory analogue experiments on the relation between alcohol intoxication and emotional response, considering attention and other cognitive variables as mediators, (b) analysis of the role of drinking in prejudice, (c) the application of information about attentional and emotional responses to appetitive stimuli involved in addictions to understanding of craving and relapse, and (d) examination of alcohol effects on visuomotor processes.

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Valerie Knopik, Ph.D.

Dr. Knopik is an Assistant Professor, Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, Department of Community Health at Brown University. She received her Ph.D. in Behavioral Genetics from the Institute for Behavioral Genetics and the University of Colorado, Boulder, and completed a NIAAA-funded postdoctoral fellowship in psychiatric genetics and genetic epidemiology at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Dr. Knopik's primary area of interest is the interplay of genetic and environmental (specifically perinatal) risk factors on childhood and adolescent disruptive behavior, cognitive deficits, and substance use. She has been recognized by the Research Society for Alcoholism as a finalist for the Enoch Gordis Research Recognition Award, by the NIDA Genetics Workgroup, and by the Behavior Genetics Association with the 2007 Fuller and Scott Early Career Award. Dr. Knopik is PI of a NIDA-funded Career Development Award as well as a NIDA-funded R01 that examines parental contributions (both genetic as well as pre- and postnatal home environment) to child and adolescent substance use initiation and neuropsychological deficits.  In addition to developing her own research program, she is actively involved in many other active and pending grants involving genetically-informative designs, both local to Rhode Island, and across the US and abroad.

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Christina Lee, Ph.D.

Dr. Lee is an Assistant Professor of Research, Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, in the Department of Community Health at Brown University.  She received her Ph.D. from New York University.  Prior to graduate school, Dr. Lee worked as a substance abuse counselor with chemically dependent and mentally-ill patients in a hospital setting.  As a graduate student she received a National Research Service Award (NIAAA) for her dissertation on clinical decision-making with minority alcohol-involved adolescents. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship in addictions studies at the Brown University School of Medicine. Dr. Lee's research focuses most broadly on developing and implementing innovative clinical treatment research to reduce alcohol/substance use related health disparities in underserved populations.  Other research areas of interest include methods to enhance minority recruitment and retention and mechanisms of change in behavioral health treatment outcomes.  Since 2005, Dr. Lee has been a Planning Committee member for the Working Consortium on the Inclusion and Care of the Underserved, sponsored by the Mayo Clinic.

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Christopher Martin, Ph.D.

Dr. Martin received his Ph.D. from Indiana University and is currently Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology at the Western Psychiatric Institute and Clinic at the University of Pittsburgh. His primary research interests are the Nosology and clinical course of adolescent-onset alcohol and other substance use disorders. Dr. Martin is principal investigator (PI) on a NIAAA-funded R01 that provides longitudinal follow-up assessments in a large sample recruited from addictions treatment during adolescence. He is the recipient of an NIAAA Independent Scientist Award and has been a PI and Co-I on several other NIAAA and NIDA grants.  He is a fellow in the American Psychological Association Division 28 (Psychopharmacology and Substance Abuse), and is a task force member for NIAAA’s underage drinking initiative.

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Sara Jo Nixon, Ph.D.

Dr. Nixon a Professor in the Division of Addictions Medicine within the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Florida.  She also directs UF’s Neurocognitive Laboratory.  Born and raised in Oklahoma, she received a B.S. in psychology at Southwestern Oklahoma State University, and her master's and Ph.D. degrees in experimental psychology at the University of Oklahoma. Dr. Nixon’s research emphasis over the past 16 years has focused on the long-term consequences of substance abuse and psychosocial functions, and on the connection between brain dysfunction and behavior.  She has worked with a variety of populations including women, prisoners, ethnic/minority groups and the aging. Her interests include substance abuse effects on cognitive processes; recovery of cognitive and social skills.  She has authored or co-authored over 125 journal articles and has been awarded over $4 million in grants, primarily from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and the National Institute on Drug Abuse. 

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Tibor Palfai, Ph.D.

Dr. Palfai is an Associate Professor at Boston University.  Dr. Palfai is one of a handful of alcohol researchers who works across human laboratory and applied intervention research.  Dr. Palfai received his Ph.D. from Yale University in 1994 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies. His primary research interest is the role of cognitive processes in addictive behaviors.  He is particularly interested in understanding how conscious and non-conscious processes are involved in efforts to control craving for substances, and developing cognitive-behavioral treatments for problem drinking.  Dr. Palfai also conducts research on how mood states influence evaluative judgment and reasoning.

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Michael Sayette, Ph.D.

Dr. Sayette is a Professor of Psychology and Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh, where he directs the Alcohol and Smoking Research Laboratory. He received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from Rutgers University and completed his internship at the Brown University School of Medicine.  His research examines social, cognitive, emotional, and neurobiological processes that affect the use and abuse of alcohol and tobacco. He has been particularly interested in the association between alcohol and stress and in cigarette craving.  Dr. Sayette’s research is supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism and by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. He is a fellow in the Association for Psychological Science and the American Psychological Association (Division 50), and serves as an associate editor at Journal of Abnormal Psychology.

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Mark B. Sobell, Ph.D., ABPP

Dr. Sobell is a Professor at the Center for Psychological Studies at Nova Southeastern University in Ft. Lauderdale, Florida.  He is also Co-Director of the Healthy Lifestyles Guided Self-Change Program at NSU. He received his Ph.D. in psychology from the University of California at Riverside and holds a Diplomate in Behavioral Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology. A major focus of his work has been on developing brief motivational interventions for people who have alcohol or drug problems that are not severe. In recognition of his research accomplishments, he has received the Distinguished Scientific Contribution Award from the American Psychological Association, Society of Clinica Psychology, Lifetime Achievement Award from Addictions Special Interest Group, Association for Behavioral and Cognitive and Therapies, and the Jellinek Memorial Award for outstanding contributions to knowledge in the field of alcohol studies. Dr. Sobell’s publications include 6 books and over 250 articles and book chapters, and he has given over 170 invited presentations and clinical workshops/institutes nationally and internationally.  He was Acting Editor of the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and is on the editorial board of 5 other journals.  He is a Fellow in the American Psychological Association and nationally and internationally recognized for his work in the area of addictive behaviors.

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Anthony Spirito, Ph.D.

Dr. Spirito is a Professor of Psychiatry and Human Behavior at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University, and Director of Clinical Psychology Training at the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His research interests include adolescent suicidality, depression, and substance abuse.  Currently, he is involved in several major projects including: a longitudinal study of risk factors, particularly peer relationships, in the transition to puberty that affect the development of suicidal and substance use behavior; a multisite, randomized controlled trial of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors (SSRIs) alone or in combination with cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for treatment-resistant adolescent depression; and a study examining the effectiveness of a family-based motivational interview for alcohol positive adolescents seen in the emergency department.  He also has a mid-career award from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) to mentor junior faculty in developing interventions for adolescents with comorbid substance use and suicidal behavior. The Mentoring Award supported the development of a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA)-funded study (C. Esposito, PI) testing a CBT protocol for these comorbid adolescents, on which Dr. Spirito is co-investigator.

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Michael Stein, M.D.

Dr. Stein is a Professor of Medicine & Community Health at Brown University Medical School, and serves as the Director of the General Internal Medicine Research Unit at Brown University, and Director of the General Internal Medicine Fellowship at Brown University.  Clinically, he directs the HIV program at Rhode Island Hospital, which is part of Brown's AIDS Clinical Trials Unit.  He is an internationally-acclaimed authority on the interaction of HIV disease, drug use disorders, and primary care, and the author of over 150 medical papers. Dr. Stein received his undergraduate degree from Harvard College and his medical degree from Columbia University College of Physicians & Surgeons.  He is the Principal Investigator of five National Institute of Health-funded clinical prevention trials. Over the past decade, he has been the Principal Investigator of ten RO1's funded through NIAAA, NIDA, NIMH and NCI.  In addition, he teaches a course on literature and medicine in the English Department at Brown University and is the author of four novels.  His first book of non-fiction, The Lonely Patient (Harper Collins/Morrow, 2007), examines the emotional lives of people grappling with illnesses including cancer, chronic pain, and the complications of surgery.

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Holly Barrett Waldron, Ph.D.

Dr. Waldron is a Senior Scientist at the Oregon Research Institute and is a licensed clinical psychologist.  She received her doctorate in clinical psychology from the University of Utah in 1987.  Dr. Waldron's primary clinical and research interests include treatment development and the evaluation of behavioral and family-based interventions for adolescent alcohol and drug use disorders, HIV risk, and other problem behaviors.  Currently, her federally funded research examines trajectories of change focusing on treatment response patterns and mechanisms of change to better understand how and why individual youth respond to various treatment approaches.  In addition, she and her colleagues are working to develop treatments for adolescent methamphetamine abuse and dependence and to prevent relapse to substance use.  As a scientist-practitioner, Dr. Waldron is also actively engaged in dissemination efforts to transport evidence-based practices to community settings.  She provides clinical training and supervision to professionals and graduate students in community and academic settings.

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Tamara L. Wall, Ph.D.

Dr. Wall received her B.A. in Psychology from the University of California, San Diego (UCSD), and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the Joint Doctoral Program between San Diego State University and UCSD. Dr. Wall is Associate Chief of the Psychology Service and Director of Psychological Services for the Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System.  She also is Associate Director of the Joint Doctoral Program between San Diego State University and UCSD.  Dr. Wall’s research is focused on factors and processes that predispose and/or protect individuals, particularly ethnic minorities, from alcohol and other substance involvement.  She has studied Asian Americans, Native Americans, Hispanic Americans, and Jewish and non-Jewish Caucasians. Dr. Wall is licensed as a psychologist in the state of California.  She supervises doctoral students, psychology interns, and postdoctoral fellows who perform clinical rotations at the Veterans Affairs San Diego Healthcare System, Alcohol and Drug Treatment Program.

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New Investigator Innovations Speaker

 

Ana I. Balsa, Ph.D.

Dr. Balsa received her B.A. in Economics from the Universidad de la Republica, Montevideo, Uruguay, in 1996, and her Ph.D. in Economics from Boston University in 2003. Her primary area of research is health economics, with interests in the economics of substance use and the economics of health and healthcare disparities.  In the area of disparities, she has studied the impact of statistical discrimination on physicians' allocation of medical resources and has worked on the distribution of health care resources across socioeconomic groups. Her research on substance use and abuse includes studies of the consequences of parental alcohol misuse on children's use of health care services, children’s health and labor outcomes at adulthood; evaluations of substance abuse treatments; and studies of the consequences of alcohol use and misuse on health and health care. Dr. Balsa is currently the Principal Investigator in a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism grant studying the associations between popularity and alcohol use among adolescents. Dr. Balsa's recent publications include articles in the Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Human Resources, and Health Services Research.

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