Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies
Our mission is to promote the identification, prevention, and effective treatment of alcohol and other drug use problems in our society through research, education, training, and policy advocacy.
Center Leadership
Peter M. Monti, Ph.D., Center Director
Suzanne Colby, Ph.D., Associate Director
Jeffrey Griffin, Associate Director, Finance and Administration
Christopher Kahler, Ph.D., Associate Director of Biostatistics
Damaris Rohsenow, Ph.D., Associate Director
Robert Swift, M.D., Ph.D., Associate Director
2011 NIAAA T32 Trainee Workshop
The 2011 NIAAA T32 Trainee Workshop was held at CAAS on September 23-25. The approximately
145 attendees included T32 training directors, predoctoral and postdoctoral trainees from thirty NIAAA-
funded training programs around the country. The first evening involved a meeting of training directors
and NIAAA program staff and grants administrators. The next day, meeting participants were welcomed
by CAAS Director Dr. Peter Monti and Training Director Dr. Suzanne Colby, and then given an update
from NIAAA by Acting Director Dr. Kenneth Warren. Dr. Mariela Shirley, Co-Chair of the NIAAA
Centers and Training Team at the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research, presented Early
Career Funding Opportunities for Alcohol Researchers. Twenty-four paper presentations were given
by trainees nominated by their training programs across the topics of Alcohol Consumption, Risks,
Consequences, and Intervention in Young Adults; Effects of Acute and Chronic Alcohol Consumption
on Neurotransmission, Cognition, and Learning; Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Translational
Research; FMRI Studies; Genetic and Environmental Factors. Jordan Braciszewski and Golfo Tzilos,
current CAAS fellows were Co-Chairs of the CAAS planning committee, and CAAS fellows played a
major role in organizing the seminars, including two career development panels on communication with
the media and negotiating research positions. Additional trainee research was displayed in an actively
attended poster session. CAAS was proud to be selected to be the site for this meeting, which was
funded by NIAAA grant #R13 AA020766 awarded to Dr. Suzanne Colby.
CAAS Training Director Suzanne Colby (3rd from left) with Damaris Rohsenow, PI of the companion NIDA T32 (4th from left), and CAAS postdoctoral fellows (left to right) Jordan Braciszewski, Ashlee Carter, Jessica Nargiso, Elise Clerkin, and Golfo Tzilos while attending the NIAAA Trainee Workshop.
Contacting CAAS
The Brown University Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies is located at
121 South Main St., Providence, RI.
News
Dr. Uraina Clark, a CAAS Postdoctoral
Fellow working with Dr. Tara White, has been selected as a finalist
for the prestigious Research Society on Alcoholism Postdoctoral Enoch
Gordis Award. The award winner will be named at the conference in
June. If you are attending RSA this year, you can see Uraina's
presentation at the Award Finalist session, which is being held on
Monday, June 25 from 6:10-7:30 pm.
CAAS Postdoctoral Trainee, Dr. Uraina Clark, recently participated in a panel discussion for Lifespan Community Health Services, entitled “Promoting Positive Mental and
Physical Health Outcomes in the Black Community.” The discussion, attended by over 70 people, was held in honor of Black History Month. Dr. Clark, a neuropsychologist, described some of her research on the impact of health status on the brain. For more information about the panel, please click here.
Posted March 29, 2012
Lorenzo Leggio received an ACNP Travel Award to attend the 2011 American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP) meeting in Hawaii (December 4-8, 2011). His poster presentation (study funded by a CAAS REA) was selected as one of the ten studies to be presented at the 2011 ACNP "Hot Topics Clinical Science Session".
Also, during the ACNP meeting, Bob Swift (already an ACNP Member) was elected Fellow of the ACNP.
Posted December 15, 2011
The Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies presented Peter Monti, Director of Brown’s
Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, its Addictive Behavior Lifetime Achievement Award in
Toronto on November 12. Although Monti has published 235 papers and co-authored five books, he
says the legacy he is most proud of is his work in training scores of young addiction researchers, some
of whom were on hand to hear him speak at the conference. “I’ve been teaching here at Brown for
35 years — since 1976,” said the Donald G. Millar Distinguished Professor of Alcohol and Addiction
Studies. For the last 10 of those years, he has been the principal investigator of a National Institutes of
Health “T32” grant to train postdoctoral fellows, many of whom have gone on to top professorships and
senior scientist positions. Monti won the ABCT’s Outstanding Training Program award in 1996 and the
Research Society on Alcoholism Distinguished Researcher Award in 2006.
Dr. Chris Kahler was interviewed on the Rhode Island news show The Rhode Show to discuss the Great American Smokeout and research on smoking cessation being conducted at CAAS. Click here for the interview.
Posted November 29, 2011
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