Peter M. Monti, Ph.D., will step down from the role of director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS)

Dr. Lauren Micalizzi, along with Brown University co-authors, recently published their manuscript "A psychometric assessment of the Brief Situational Confidence Questionnaire for Marijuana (BSCQ-M) in juvenile justice-involved youth" in Addictive Behaviors.

Highlights of the manuscript include: the study provided the first test of the psychometric properties of the BSCQ-M; findings indicated a three-factor structure; BSCQ-M scores showed convergent validity with past 30-day cannabis use; and the BSCQ-M can be implemented quickly and effectively among justice involved youth.

Interested in how neuroscience is relevant to wellness, flourishing & human rights?

Dr. Patricia Cioe and her study team are excited to welcome their new Research Assistant, Sophie Lazar, to CAAS!

Dr. Becker is the ninth recipient of an NIH merit award, the second health services researcher, the first implementation scientist, and the first woman to win this award at Brown University since the program was started in 1986.

Dr. Molly Magill has received a Notice of Grant Award for a U13 Conference Grant from the NIAAA with MPI Dr. Stephen Maisto from Syracuse University.

Dr. Kelli Scott and collaborators at CAAS and the Brown University Center for Evidence Synthesis in Health recently published, "Pharmacotherapy interventions for adolescent co-occurring substance use and mental health disorders: a systematic review" in Family Practice. Findings from the review suggest that pharmacotherapy for mental health is insufficient for addressing substance use, suggesting the need for additional intervention for teens with substance use problems.

Co-authors include: Drs. Sara Becker, Sarah Helseth, Ian J Saldanha, Ethan M Balk, Gaelen P Adam, Kristin J Konnyu, Dale W Steele

Dr. Nathan Kearns recently published a new first-author manuscript "Effects of bodily arousal on desire to drink alcohol among trauma-exposed college students" in Alcohol.

Generally, findings suggest that bodily arousal may only serve as an implicit, trauma-relevant interoceptive cue that increases desire to drink within a specific subset of trauma-exposed college students (i.e., individuals indexing interpersonal trauma).

These fellows will spend the next few years focused on innovative research, advanced dissemination and implementation strategies, and public education.

Welcome Bianca Camacho and Emily Alton, our newest research assistants at CAAS!

The Project RAVEN team is happy to welcome Jake Tempchin, their new Senior Research Assistant, to CAAS and Brown.

Check out Grace Kim's poster on an app aimed to reduce cannibis use among youths.

In a new paper, Dr. Tara White and Meg Gonsalves propose that human rights are deeply rooted in human brain science, which provides a novel evidentiary base informing the universality, scope, and content of human rights and their relationship to human dignity. Their paper, "Dignity neuroscience: universal rights are rooted in human brain science" was published in Annals of the New York Academy of Sciences on August 5, 2021.

Congratulations to Dr. Arryn Guy, current CAAS Postdoctoral Fellow, for being selected to receive a Loan Repayment Program award from the Clinical through the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism!

Congratulations to Dr. Lauren Micalizzi who has recently been named Associate Editor of the Journal of Child and Family Studies.

Mo Akande will be pursuing a Ph.D. in Population, Family and Reproductive Health at Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health advancing her passion for preventing violence domestically and globally.

Dr. Rachel Cassidy is part of a team that received an R01 from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) to study the impact of new graphic warning labels for cigarillo packaging on young adult tobacco use behavior.

Dr. Aditya Khanna was recently featured in three media interviews from the Chattanooga Times Free Press and the Vermont Digger discussing COVID-19 testing, the emergence of new variants, and reopening timelines.

The APA Division 50 summer 2021 SoAP Box Newsletter featured Dr. Melissa Pielech as the Early Career Psychologist Spotlight!

The New England Addiction Technology Transfer Network (ATTC) has a new team member!

Assistant Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences, Dr. Aditya Khanna, recently published in the journal Mathematical and Biosciences and Engineering.

ARCH has announced the recipients for the 2021 Pilot Grant Awards

Holly Boyle Selected was selected as student finalist for the 2021 Enoch Gordis Research Achievement Award

We are thrilled to announce that Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies Faculty, Dr. Carolina Haass-Koffler, has recently been promoted to Associate Professor!

Postdoctoral fellow, Dr. Samuel Meisel, has two new first-author publications with CAAS faculty and former postdoctoral fellow co-authors in the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology and Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

Dr. Sara Becker has a newly published manuscript in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment (JSAT) and was quoted in a New York Times article!

Her poster titled, "Intervention Development to Promote Safe and Affirming Sex for Transgender Women Survivors of Intimate Partner Violence" presented qualitative findings from service providers working with transgender women (TW) in Rhode Island.

Dr. Patricia Cioe was recently promoted to Associate Professor of Behavioral and Social Sciences!

Dr. Kelli Scott recently published a manuscript titled, "Implementation support for contingency management: preferences of opioid treatment program leaders and staff" in Implementation Science Communications.

Dr. Helseth recently published manuscript: "What parents of adolescents in residential substance use treatment want from continuing care: A content analysis of online forum posts."

School of Public Health faculty, Drs. Murphy, Micalizzi, Sokolovsky, and Risica, along with colleagues, recently published an article titled "Motivational Interviewing Telephone Counseling to Increase Postpartum Maintenance of Abstinence from Tobacco" in the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.

Dr. David Zelaya co-authored a book chapter titled "Psychosocial Risk and Resilience Factors in LGBTQ POC Mental Health."

Dr. Kristina Jackson recently received notice of award for an R01 funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism called "Prevalence, onset and progression of substance use in adolescents and young adults with Autism Spectrum Disorders" as a multiple-PI with Drs. Anthony Spirito and Stephen Sheinkopf.

Neuroscience Ph.D. student recently co-authored a study published in the British Journal of Clinical Psychology

Dr. Angela Stevens received the 2021 ACER Journal Award for Outstanding Paper by an Early Career Investigator

Dr. Augustine Kang recently received the American Society of Addiction Medicine's (ASAM) Abstract Award: Associated Professionals.

Dr. Brendan Jacka launched his very first study as a Principal Investigator (PI), The TAROE Pilot Study, where Dr. Jacka and his team will be looking at the experiences of layperson (non-professional) responders to opioid overdose incidents, including stress response following.

Dr. Patricia Cioe recently received notice of award for a new R21 grant

Three Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS) Postdoctoral Fellowship Alumni and current CAAS Assistant and Associate Professors, Hayley Treloar Padovano, Jennifer Merrill, and Sara Becker recently received prestigious awards in recognition of their research excellence, mentorship, and collaboration.

Dr. Kelli Scott recently received notice of award for a 5-year K23 Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse

Angela Stevens, PhD, CAAS Postdoctoral Fellow, recently published, "Examining motivational pathways from adult attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder symptoms to cannabis use: Results from a prospective study of veterans" in Psychology of Addictive Behaviors with co-authors, Drs. Gunn, Jackson, Borsari, and Metrik.

Dr. Carolina Haass-Koffler, who studies mechanisms of addiction and drug treatment for Alcohol Use Disorder (AUD), was interviewed by "The Scientist" where she was asked to comment on the recently published manuscript by Jin and colleagues, "Brain Ethanol Metabolism by Astrocytic ALDH2 Drives the Behavioural Effects of Ethanol Intoxication" in the journal Nature Metabolism. Her interview was featured in the "The Scientist" news article, "Cerebellum Plays Crucial Role in Metabolizing Alcohol in Mice" written by Marcus Banks where she calls the Jin and colleagues study a "huge advancement."

Dr. Hayley Treloar Padovano recently received notice that she is receiving the Early Career Investigator Award from the Research Society on Alcohol

Dr. Kelli Scott recently hosted the Addiction Science Journal Club’s first Twitter Chat discussing her manuscript, “Health Professional Stigma as a Barrier to Contingency Management Implementation in Opioid Treatment Programs” on Friday, March 12th.

Dr. Angela Stevens recently authored a paper on alcohol and cannabis co-use.

Her co-authored publication in Nicotine and Tobacco focused on the challenges faced by grantees of the National Cancer Institute, while conducting smoking cessation trials in people living with HIV and in the paper described the procedural, analytic/statistical, and financial/administrative challenges they encountered due to the Covid-19 pandemic.