Division of Prevention and Community Research & The Consultation Center

Krysten Bold, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and licensed clinical psychologist and Director of Health, Advocacy, & Behavioral Interventions for Tobacco (HABIT) lab. Her program of research focuses on understanding tobacco use and other substance use among youth and adults to identify new ways to reduce use and related harm by improving interventions at the individual level and at broader community and policy levels. Ongoing projects include a large randomized clinical trial as part of the Yale Tobacco Center of Regulatory Science (TCORS) evaluating the impact of switching from cigarettes to e-cigarettes or oral nicotine pouches and studying how flavors and nicotine concentrations impact health outcomes. Fellows interested in tobacco cessation and policy impact work will also have access to data from Dr. Bold’s prior studies including trials evaluating wearables and digital health support for quitting tobacco use, trials evaluating the impact of menthol flavor in cigarettes and e-cigarettes, and other data including qualitative interviews, focus groups, and youth and adult surveys of tobacco and other substance use. Fellows have opportunities to receive training in these areas as well as support in pursuing related independent research projects.

Deepa Camenga, MD, MHS, FAAP, is an Associate Professor of Emergency Medicine at Yale School of Medicine and a physician-scientist with expertise in adolescent addiction and substance use prevention. Her research focuses on improving the identification, prevention, and treatment of substance use and substance use disorders among youth in pediatric healthcare settings. Dr. Camenga leads NIH-funded research examining innovative approaches to substance use prevention and early intervention, including digital health technologies, implementation strategies to integrate prevention services into pediatric primary care, and interventions to reduce youth nicotine and cannabis vaping. Her work combines clinical, behavioral, and implementation science methods to develop scalable strategies that improve adolescent health outcomes and advance the delivery of evidence-based substance use care for youth. Fellows in Dr. Camenga's research program gain experience in substance use prevention research, digital health intervention development and evaluation, implementation science, pragmatic clinical trials, mixed-methods research, and pediatric addiction medicine.

E. Jennifer Edelman, MD, MHS, is a Professor of Medicine (General Internal Medicine) and Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences). Certified as an internist, HIV specialist, and in Addiction Medicine, she serves as physician at the Yale Center for Infectious Disease, taking care of individuals with HIV with a focus on treating individuals with substance use disorders. She is Director of the Yale Center for Interdisciplinary Research on AIDS Clinical and Health Services Research Core, Co-Director of Education of the Yale Center for Clinical Investigation, and Associate Director of the Research in Addiction Medicine Scholars Program. Her NIH-funded research focuses on understanding and addressing harms of substance use among individuals with and at substantial risk for HIV in community and clinical settings with interdisciplinary teams. Potential opportunities for fellows may include leading: 1) qualitative data collection in the context of ongoing clinical trials to understand factors impacting intervention implementation; 2) secondary data analyses of a recently completed multi-site clinical trial focused on addressing tobacco use among individuals with HIV; 3) literature reviews (i.e., meta-analytic or systematic reviews) of current knowledge regarding drivers and consequences of substance use, such as the role of trauma and its impact on inflammation and medical comorbidities and immune-related effects of substance use and treatment.

Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry and a Chair of the IRB at Yale. Dr. Krishnan-Sarin’s research focuses on developing a bio-behavioral understanding of the underpinnings of tobacco (nicotine), marijuana and alcohol use, in adolescent and adult populations, and developing new pharmacological and behavioral interventions to reduce and prevent use of these substances. She leads tobacco initiatives at Yale including an FDA/NIH-funded center focused on developing scientific evidence on flavors, sweeteners, nicotine, and other additives in tobacco/nicotine products to support FDA regulation of these products. She also leads initiatives funded through the American Heart Association and NIH to develop interventions to reduce e-cigarette use, including an ongoing trial of an app-based cognitive behavioral intervention for high school youth. A separate line of research also focuses on understanding the neurobiology of alcohol drinking and using this information to evaluate potential medications for reducing drinking. The fellow could be involved in qualitative and quantitative research related to developing and disseminating e-cigarette interventions, and analyzing evidence from local surveys with middle and high school adolescents, or from national datasets like the Populations Assessment of Tobacco and Health, to understand use rates and perceptions and attitudes toward tobacco products.

Linda Mayes, MD, Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center; Chair, Yale Child Study Center; Deputy Dean for Professionalism and Leadership, Office of the Dean, School of Medicine, and along with Helena Rutherford, PhD, an Associate Professor in the Yale Child Study Center and in the Department of Psychology, their research consists of multi-modal imaging methods to study the impact of addiction on mothers’ neural response to infant cries and faces and its association with caregiving behaviors across the perinatal period. The fellow would have access to the collection and analysis of behavioral, EEG/ERP and fMRI data in parent populations with current and/or prior substance use.

Li Yan McCurdy, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Nurturing Addiction Recovery & Wellness Lab (NARWL). Informed by her research training as a neurobiologist, her clinical training in addiction counseling, and her community-based work with recovery organizations, Dr. McCurdy’s program of research is centered on facilitating addiction recovery through empowerment and social connection. A major component of her research is “Let’s Do Addiction Recovery Together!” (LDART), a digital intervention she developed that uses videos from peers to motivate and support individuals in early recovery. This research has been funded by grants and awards from NIDA, the Society of Addiction Psychology, and the College on Problems of Drug Dependence. Fellows will have the opportunity to work on various components of intervention research, including secondary data analysis of clinical trials of LDART for adults with alcohol or stimulant use disorder, and adapting LDART for specific populations of interest, which will entail conducting qualitative interviews and utilizing other intervention development methodology. Additional opportunities involving collaborations with colleagues and community-based partners can be made possible. Fellows will be encouraged to initiate and work on projects that resonate most with them.

Jaimie P. Meyer, MD, MS, is an Associate Professor of Medicine and Public Health at Yale, and the Director of the Infectious Disease fellowship training program. She is a practicing physician who is board-certified in Internal Medicine, Infectious Diseases, and Addiction Medicine. Her NIH-funded clinical research lab focuses on HIV prevention and treatment for women, addressing social and structural determinants of health. Ongoing projects involve HIV prevention and treatment interventions for women involved in criminal legal systems, attending to reproductive health needs, intimate partner violence, substance use disorders and homelessness. Her clinical work and research are motivated by her experience working as an HIV care provider at the only women’s prison and jail in Connecticut.

Christopher Morrison, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Epidemiology (Chronic Diseases) at the Yale School of Public Health, and the Scientific Director for firearm injury prevention. His research uses spatial epidemiology methods to identify strategies to prevent injuries and violence, including road traffic crashes, firearm injuries, alcohol-related injuries, and harms related to substance use. He leads ongoing federally funded studies to understand how changes to build environments affect these outcomes. For example, a mixed methods study examines how upgrades to schoolyard facilities affect mobility and public safety for youth and young adults, a longitudinal study examines how capital works upgrades affect violence and perceived safety for local residents, and a synthetic cohort study examines lifecourse predictors of substance use and firearm injury. Opportunities for fellows include analyses of these primary and secondary data sources, learning spatial epidemiologic methods, and developing expertise examining environmental strategies to prevent injury and harms related to substance use.

Ijeoma Opara, PhD, MSW, MPH, is an Assistant Professor of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences) and the Director of The Substance Abuse and Sexual Health (SASH) Lab. Dr. Opara defines herself as a community-based participatory researcher with experience in working with youth and community organizations dedicated to reducing substance use in urban communities. Dr. Opara’s research focuses on strengths-based approaches for urban youth substance use and HIV prevention. Her second line of research involves highlighting racial and gender specific strategies in prevention research for Black girls. Her current projects include: 1) The Paterson Prevention Project (a 5-year study funded by the NIH Director’s Early Independence Award), a community-based study that focuses on neighborhoods impact on substance use and mental health for urban racial-ethnic minority youth in Paterson, New Jersey, with the goal being to use formative data to develop a sustainable substance use and mental health prevention program in Paterson; 2) The Dreamer Girls Project, a strengths-based HIV/STI and drug use prevention program that seeks to improve health outcomes for Black girls; and 3) adaptation of the strong African American families intervention, a pilot study of developing a brief parent-children substance use prevention intervention for urban families. Data collection for all projects have been completed. Analysis, intervention testing, and dissemination of results are priority during this next phase. Dr. Opara is also involved in other studies that focus on using multiple sources of data and methodologies to inform and develop strengths-based substance use prevention interventions that involve community support, improve mental health outcomes, and strengthen social support and youth empowerment for youth and their families.

John Pachankis, PhD, is the David R. Kessler Professor of Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences), Professor of Psychology, and Professor of Psychiatry. He directs Yale’s LGBTQ Mental Health Initiative, which serves as a home for scholarship devoted to understanding and improving the mental and behavioral health of LGBTQ populations in the US and around the world. His research has identified biopsychosocial mechanisms underlying LGBTQ people’s disproportionate risk of mental health problems, including substance use problems, developed treatments to address these mechanisms, and studied the implementation of these treatments to address mental health and substance use problems in community settings across the US and around the world.

Marc N. Potenza, PhD, MD, is the Steven M. Southwick Professor of Psychiatry, in the Child Study Center, and of Neuroscience; Director, Division of Addiction Research at Yale; Director, Center of Excellence in Gambling Research; Director, Yale Program for Research on Impulsivity and Impulse Control Disorders; Director, Women and Addictive Disorders, Women’s Health Research at Yale. His research is focused on the substance and nonsubstance (behavioral) addictions, with the latter including excessive or problematic engagement in gambling, gaming, internet use, sex (including pornography use), shopping or eating. He and his group utilize multiple approaches including brain imaging (fMRI, sMRI, DTI and PET), genetic, pharmacological, behavioral, cognitive, survey, qualitative and other assessments. Data from completed and ongoing studies that are available include those from or involving youth (particularly adolescents) and adults at-risk or with addictions, including longitudinal data and large datasets like ABCD. Data from multiple modalities (e.g., relating brain imaging measures to clinical outcomes in the treatment of addictions) are available from completed and ongoing studies. Similarly, data from completed and ongoing studies of mother/child interactions that include maternal neural responses to infant stimuli in substance-using and nonsubstance-using mothers are available for study. His group also has been investigating the neural correlates of spirituality and how spirituality and recovery capital may operate in people with addictions. He and others have worked to develop an app to deliver cognitive behavioral therapy to people with gambling problems and are now testing the app in a randomized clinical trial, with intentions for further implementation following the trial.

Helena Rutherford, PhD is an Associate Professor in the Yale Child Study Center and in the Department of Psychology, and along with Linda Mayes, MD , Arnold Gesell Professor of Child Psychiatry, Pediatrics and Psychology in the Yale Child Study Center; Chair, Yale Child Study Center; Deputy Dean for Professionalism and Leadership, Office of the Dean, School of Medicine, their research consists of multi-modal imaging methods to study the impact of addiction on mothers’ neural response to infant cries and faces and its association with caregiving behaviors across the perinatal period. The fellow would have access to the collection and analysis of behavioral, EEG/ERP and fMRI data in parent populations with current and/or prior substance use.

Melissa R. Schick, PhD, is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and the Director of the Study of Trauma, Addiction, and Recovery (STAR) Lab. Dr. Schick’s research focuses on understanding mechanistic processes influencing the development, course, maintenance, remission, and prevention of substance use among trauma-exposed individuals. Her work includes a specific focus on the use of experience sampling methodologies to examine factors that occur proximally to substance use, with the goal of ultimately informing the development and implementation of just-in-time substance use-focused interventions. She is further interested in exploring health disparities and inequities related to substance use and is dedicated to conducting work focused on marginalized populations to better understand how such inequities might be considered in substance use treatment and research. Dr. Schick is currently funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse to focus on the use of ambulatory assessment (experience sampling in conjunction with biosensing) to predict substance use risk among trauma-exposed community adults. Fellows within the STAR Lab would have the opportunity to receive training in these areas, as well as access to several datasets focused at the intersection of substance use and trauma for secondary analyses and support to carry out evidence synthesis projects (e.g., systematic reviews and meta-analyses).

Rajita Sinha, Ph.D. is the Foundations Fund Endowed Professor in Psychiatry, and Professor in Neuroscience and in Child Study at the Yale University School of Medicine. She is a licensed Clinical Psychologist and Clinical Neuroscientist, Deputy Chair of Psychiatry for Psychology and Chief of the Psychology Section in Psychiatry. She is the founding director of the Yale Interdisciplinary Stress Center that focuses on understanding the neurobiology and psychology of stress, trauma and resilient versus vulnerable biobehavioral coping mechanisms that promote neuropsychiatric diseases such as alcohol use disorders, substance use disorders, chronic pain, PTSD and other chronic diseases. She has developed novel stress, pain and craving provocation paradigms to understand mechanisms that drive these states and related pathologies and their impact on clinical addiction outcomes in alcohol use disorder, substance use disorders and related conditions. Her lab also develops and tests novel pharmacologic and integrative behavioral approaches to address chronic stress and addiction relapse risk to improve addiction treatment outcomes. These objectives are being accomplished through a series of NIH funded research projects and she has published widely on these topics. She is the 2020 recipient of the Research Society on Alcoholism's Distinguished Researcher Award, and the 2020 recipient of the James Tharpe Award for outstanding contributions to Addiction Research. She has served on many NIH special emphasis panels, review committees and workshops, presented at numerous national and international conferences, and her work is widely cited.

Tami P. Sullivan, PhD, is Professor of Psychiatry (Psychology) and Public Health (Social and Behavioral Sciences). She Directs the Division of Prevention and Community Research, the NIDA-funded Postdoctoral Training Program in Substance Use Prevention Research, and the Family Violence Research and Program Area (The Sullivan Lab). Dr. Sullivan’s NIH- and OVW-funded research focuses on trauma, particularly intimate partner violence (IPV) among women, and its intersection with substance use, with an emphasis on promoting resilience and recovery. A hallmark of her work is the use of micro-longitudinal designs. These capture how IPV, posttraumatic stress, and substance use, along with resilience factors such as hope, self-efficacy, and empowerment, vary and influence one another from day to day in women's natural environments. Fellows gain training in the design, collection, and analysis of micro-longitudinal data. Her community-partnered research centers women who have experienced IPV and the practitioners who support them. It examines how service systems promote or impede women's safety, recovery, and resilience. Her intervention development includes a peer-led support group, a single-session intervention to promote hope, and a stepped-care behavioral health intervention aimed at reducing trauma symptoms to enhance retention in opioid use disorder care. Potential opportunities for fellows include: 1) development of manuscripts/analyses of micro-longitudinal data to examine day-to-day associations among for example, IPV, posttraumatic stress, and substance use among women, or to understand variability in hope and its association with other measures of wellbeing; 2) evaluation of the single-session hope intervention and the stepped-care intervention for women in opioid use disorder treatment; 3) contributions to the development of grant applications focused on recovery from substance use and trauma; and 4) systematic or meta-analytic reviews of factors that promote resilience and recovery among women who have experienced IPV. Other opportunities as aligned with the fellow’s goals.