Predoctoral Fellows Samantha Doonan Elizabeth J. Goldsborough David M. Hall Sarah Kimball Cindy Nichols Sean Pratt Avery Turner

Postdoctoral Fellows Mary-Andrée Ardouin-Guerrier Navin Kumar Olivia Marcus Aysu Secmen Kelly Szott

 

Samantha Doonan is a PhD student in the Department of Population Health at the NYU Grossman School of Medicine and is affiliated with the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy. Her research focuses on the impact of cannabis legalization and other substance use policies on population health and equity, including impacts on arrests. She is also interested in building effective government-academic partnerships to evaluate and implement evidence-based policies. Prior to joining NYU, she worked as a research analyst for the Massachusetts Cannabis Control Commission and previously worked as a health science specialist for the Veteran Affairs National Center for PTSD.

Selected Publications

Doonan, SM., Johnson, JK., Firth, C., Flores, A., & Joshi, S. (2022). Racial Equity in Cannabis Policy: Diversity in the Massachusetts Adult-Use Industry at 18-months. Cannabis, 5(1), 30-41.

Doonan, SM., Hamilton, JR., & Johnson JK. (2020). Using the National Incident-Based Reporting System (NIBRS) to Examine Racial and Ethnic Disparities in Cannabis Incidents. The American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 1-7. doi:10.1080/00952990.2020.1803894

Elizabeth Jurczak Goldsborough is a PhD candidate at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work and a licensed social worker dedicated to social justice and health equity. Her research and practice interests span interprofessional collaboration, tobacco and substance use, concurrent treatment for tobacco and substance use, and social work education. Elizabeth’s commitment to these areas is driven by her professional experience and a desire to make a tangible impact. She holds an MSW and a BA in Sociology and American Studies from Rutgers University. A first-generation college student and a 1.5 generation immigrant, Elizabeth grew up in Poland and New York City and currently resides in Massachusetts. She is passionate about conducting meaningful research and mentoring the next generation of social workers.

David M. Hall joined BST having completed his first year as a Ph.D. student in the Department of Economics at University of Oregon. David’s research interests are in the area of health economics, specifically the opioid epidemic and impacts of drug policy reforms on the state of the epidemic. Using modern economic models, David is working to model harm reduction policy impacts on a variety of economic indicators and welfare implications. He is also interested in estimation of demand elasticity of illicit and prescription medication. David graduated from California Lutheran University in 2021 with a B.A. in Economics and Mathematics, and in 2022 with a M.S. in Quantitative Economics through which he is IIF Certified in Forecasting.

Sarah Kimball is a public health doctoral candidate concentrating in epidemiology at NYU’s School of Global Public Health. Her research interests include substance use, harm reduction, and housing. Prior to coming to NYU, she worked as a Program Developer at BronxWorks where she worked with an array of programs, including family shelters, safe havens, street outreach, supportive housing, and eviction prevention. During this time, she gained invaluable experience writing grants and managing several research projects. She received a BS in Human Physiology from Boston University and MPH in Sociomedical Sciences from Columbia University.

Cindy Nichols is a PhD student at the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. Her research focuses on the implementation of medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in recovery residences. She is interested in investigating barriers to substance use treatment and challenging the stigma that can be associated with MOUD. Prior to joining UConn, she worked as a clinical social worker in various addiction recovery treatment settings, including outpatient methadone, inpatient detoxification, and outpatient dual diagnosis offering MOUD. She earned her MSW from UConn and her B.S. in Psychology, with a concentration in Neuroscience, from the Pennsylvania State University.

Lloyd Sieger, M. H., Nichols, C., Chen, S., Sienna, M., & Sanders, M. (2022). Novel Implementation of State Reporting Policy for Substance-Exposed Infants. Hospital Pediatrics. https://doi.org/10.1542/hpeds.2022-006562

Lloyd Sieger, M., Nichols, C., & Chasnoff, I. J. (2022). Child Abuse Prevention and Treatment Act, family care plans and infants with prenatal substance exposure: Theoretical framework and directions for future research. Infant & Child Development, 31(e2309), 1-17. https://doi.org/10.1002/icd.2309

Sean Pratt is a PhD student at the CUNY Graduate School of Public Health. Their research interests are on the intersections of gender and drug use, exploring sexual and reproductive health and other gender-specific needs of people who use drugs. They are additionally interested in the impact of family, peer, and intimate relationships on drug use behaviors and health outcomes among young people who inject drugs. Before beginning their PhD, Sean worked as a Harm Reduction Specialist at a syringe exchange program and  harm reduction center in Buffalo NY, providing direct services, organizational and  community trainings, and assisting in local and state advocacy efforts. Sean holds an MPH from the University at  Buffalo, and a B.S. in Biology from SUNY Oneonta.

Selected Publications
Mateu-Gelabert, Pedro; Pratt, Seanna; Guarino, Honoria; Hallack, Renee; Fong, Chunki; Eckhardt, Benjamin. (In Production; Accepted June 2024). HCV Prevalence and Phylogenetic Characteristics in a Cross-sectional, Community Study of Young People who Inject Drugs in New York City: Opportunity for and threats to HCV Elimination. Health Science Reports.

Avery Turner is a PhD student in the Prevention Science program at the University of Oregon. She is primarily interested in identifying risk and protective factors for substance misuse among young adults, with a focus on historically underrepresented communities. Prior to starting her PhD program, Avery worked as a research coordinator for the NIDA Clinical Trials Network at Dartmouth College.

Selected Publications
 Hichborn E., Moore S.K., Gauthier P., Agosti N., Bell K.D., Boggis J., Lambert-Harris C., Saunders E.C., Turner A., McLeman B., Marsch L.A. (2022, May 17). Technology-Based Interventions in Substance Use Treatment to Promote Health Equity Among People Who Identify as African American/Black, Hispanic/Latinx, and American Indian/Alaskan Native: Protocol for a Scoping Review. JMIR Res Protoc.11(5):e34508. doi: 10.2196/34508. PMID: 35579930; PMCID: PMC9157317.

Postdoctoral Fellows

Mary-Andrée Ardouin-Guerrier received her Ed.D. in Health Education from Teachers College, Columbia University. She recently served as Project Director on a NIDA funded study to examine barriers to SARS-CoV-2 vaccinations among PWID, and to identify potential ways these can be addressed via technology-based messaging. Her doctoral research focused on the use of technology to improve education and awareness of volatile organic compound exposure among households with children in high-risk asthma hospitalization neighborhoods within the South Bronx and Upper Manhattan. Her research interests consist of infant and maternal health disparities  due to environmental risk factors and the implementation of health-based technology interventions.

Navin Kumar completed a PhD in sociology. Kumar’s research uses sociological insights to explore health issues. One area of work details sexual health testing in marginalized communities, and other work looks at substance use treatment adherence. Kumar is planning to use wearable devices to better understand pain variability (including pain spikes) and clinical correlates (e.g., perceived stress) among patients receiving MOUD. Findings may inform the development of an integrated treatment intervention targeting chronic pain and OUD.

Olivia Marcus received her PhD in medical anthropology from the University of Connecticut and her Master in Public Health from Columbia University. She conducted doctoral fieldwork in Peru, examining perceptions of healing and mental health among curanderos and their clientele with a specific focus on what has come to be known as ayahuasca shamanism. Her interests are in health seeking behavior and therapeutic pluralism, particularly how people make decisions under structural constraints and how to improve equity in access to appropriate care. She leads the qualitative team in the Ayahuasca Treatment Outcome Project (ATOP), a mixed-methods longitudinal study of an addiction rehabilitation center in Peru that integrates traditional Amazonian medicine with psychotherapy in a therapeutic community setting (PI: Brian Rush). Her upcoming projects involve mixed-methods observational studies of Indigenous-led, community-based substance use interventions in Mexico and Canada.

Rush B, Shore R, Marcus O, Cunningham L, Thompson N, Rideout K. (2022). Psychedelic Medicine: A Rapid Review of Therapeutic Applications and Implications for Future Research. Homewood Research Institute, Ontario, Canada.

Rush B, Marcus O, Garcia S, Loizaga-Velder A, Loewinger G, Spitalier A, and Medive F. (2021). Protocol for Outcomes Evaluation of Ayahuasca-Assisted Addiction Treatment: The case of Takiwasi Center: Frontiers in Pharmacology doi: 10.3389/fphar.2021.659644

Tresca G, Marcus O, and Politi M. (2020). Evaluating herbal medicine preparation from a traditional perspective: insights from an ethnopharmaceutical survey in the Peruvian Amazon. Anthropology & Medicine, DOI: 10.1080/13648470.2019.1669939

Politi M, Rumlerova T, Marcus O, Saucedo G, Torres J, & Mabit J. (2019). Medicinal plants diet as emerging complementary therapy from the Amazonian tradition. Data from Centro Takiwasi, a Peruvian therapeutic community. Journal of Medicinal Herbs and Ethnomedicine 5:23-38.

Aysu Secmen, Ph.D. received her Ph.D. in Mathematics from Texas A&M University, and her B.S in Mathematics from Bogazici University. After working for19 years in quantitative trading and research in Wall Street, she is currently a postdoc in Glimcher Lab at the Neuroscience Institute at NYU SOM while simultaneously pursuing her M.A in Psychology at NYU, in the Cognition, Perception and Neuroscience track. Her research interest is understanding decision-making in addiction, with a focus on quantifying the risk factors that predispose an individual to transition from occasional opioid use to opioid use disorder. A sufficiently predictive quantitative model would allow patient specific, and dosage specific, risk assessment that could revolutionize the use of opiates in clinical settings.

Kelly Szott, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor of Sociology at Southern Oregon University. She is a medical sociologist who uses qualitative methods to study drug use and harm reduction responses. She received her PhD in sociology from Syracuse University along with a Certificate in Advanced Studies in Women’s and Gender Studies. Her past research focuses on fentanyl use and harm reduction responses in rural contexts. Her current research examines the health and social support network impacts of wildfire on rural older adults. Kelly would like to extend her research on climate crisis events to focus on how they impact drug use. Her research has been published in the International Journal of Drug Policy, Health, Critical Public Health, and Human Organization.

Szott, Kelly. “’That Doesn’t Sound Like a Good Treatment’: Objections to Medications for Opioid Use Disorder and Moral Capital in Rural Indiana.” Human Organization 82(2): 119-130.

Szott, Kelly. “’Heroin is the Devil’: Addiction, Religion, and Needle Exchange in the Rural United States.” Critical Public Health 30(1): 68-78.

Elliott, Luther, Alex S. Bennett, Kelly Szott, and Andrew Golub. “Competing Constructivisms: The Negotiation of PTSD and Related Stigma Among Post-9/11 Veterans in New York City.” Culture, Medicine, and Psychiatry 42(4): 778-799.

Szott, Kelly. “’Everybody in the House Will Go to Jail’: Opioid Overdose and Resistance to Calling 911 in a Rural Setting.” In Exploitation and Criminalization at the Margins: The Hidden Toll on Unvalued Lives, edited by T. Vanderpyl, and S. Sanchez. Lanham, MD:Lexington Books.

Sanchez, Shanell K., Kelly E. Szott, and Emma C. Ryan. “Personal Troubles are Public Issues: End Mass Incarceration.” Pp. 151-166 in Diversity in Criminology and Criminal Justice Studies. Sociology of Crime, Law and Deviance, Volume 27, edited by D.D. Silva, and M. Deflem. Bingley, UK: Emerald Publishing Limited.