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The BASIS

Expressions of Addiction

About the Division on Addictions

• Our Mission

• Division on Addictions Overview

• Faculty and Staff

Our Mission

The mission of the Division on Addictions at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate is to strengthen worldwide understanding of addiction through innovative research, education, and the global exchange of information. Our ultimate goal is to alleviate the individual, social, medical, and economic burdens caused by addictive behaviors. The Division will offer encouragement, education, and training to both the next generation of health care workers who treat addictive disorders and to scientists who study addiction. The Division will provide knowledge to public policy makers and the public alike. Finally, the Division will provide a message of compassion, tolerance, acceptance, and hope by advancing addiction science.

Division on Addictions Overview

In 1990, a Harvard Medical School planning committee recommended the creation of a Division on Addictions to direct the school's educational, medical and scientific resources toward alleviating the vast and complex array of public heath problems caused by addictive behaviors. It assigned the Division the task of coordinating research, education, training, and communication relevant to substance abuse at Harvard Medical School (HMS) and its primary affiliated teaching hospitals.

Now, the Division on Addictions at Cambridge Health Alliance, a Harvard Medical School teaching affiliate, is deepening and broadening both within and outside the university. The Division provides the critical links between HMS students, the clinical and research scientists at Harvard's and other medical education communities, and the lay public. Through its continuing medical education, faculty development courses and fellowship training program, the Division is having a meaningful influence on the medical community. An increasing number of faculty are turning to the Division as a resource for contacts and information and asking the Division to help coordinate their addiction-related research. Through its public forums, public education activities, middle school curriculum development and high school student internship program, the Division is reaching communities outside of Harvard.

Faculty and Staff

Director:

Howard J. Shaffer, Ph.D., Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School;
Editor, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors (PAB) (Click here to read more...)

Staff

Research:

• Richard LaBrie, Ed.D., Associate Director for Research and Data Analysis, Instructor in Psychology, Harvard Medical School (Click here to read more...)

• John R. Knight, M.D., Associate Director for Medical Education

• Gregory P. Gasic, Ph.D., Associate Director for Neuroscience & Genetics

• Mark Albanese, M.D., Director, Addiction Services, Cambridge Health Alliance

• Debi LaPlante, Ph.D., Associate Director, Instructor, in Psychology, Harvard Medical School (Click here to read more...)

• Sarah Nelson, Ph.D., Instructor, in Psychology, Harvard Medical School (Click here to read more...)

• Ryan Martin, Ph.D., Thomas N. Cummings Research Fellow

• Anja Schumann, Ph.D., Research Associate/Consultant

• Allyson Peller, MPH, Research Associate

• Ziming Xuan, MPH., (Ph.D. candidate HSPH 2008), Research Associate/Consultant

• John Kleschinsky, MPH, Research Associate

• Leslie Bosworth, Research Assistant

• Ingrid Maurice, Research Assistant

• Andy Boudreau, Summer Intern, Johns Hopkins University

• Jeanne Blake, Medical Reporter, Author, and affiliated faculty member, Division on Addictions

Administration:

• Christine Thurmond, Administrative Director

• Christine Reilly, Executive Director, Institute for Research on Pathological Gambling and Related Disorders

• Peter Emerson, MPP, Administrative Associate

• Gabriel Caro, Web and Technology Manager

• Melissa Marcarelli, Financial Manager

• Siri Odegaard, Editorial Assistant, PAB

• Jenna Tonet, Administrative Research Coordinator

Division Visiting Faculty:

• 1997 - 1998 David Korn, M.D., University of Toronto

• 1998 - 2001 Richard McGowan, SJD, Professor of Economics, Boston College

• 2004 - 2006 Professor Valerie DeMarinis, Stockholm Centre for Dependency Studies/The Karolinska Institute Stockholm Sweden

• 2005 – 2006 Professor Tae Kyung Lee, M.D., Ph.D., Alcohol and Drug Addiction Center, Seoul National Hospital, Seoul, South Korea

• 2007 - 2008 Line Gebauer Josefsen from the Center for Functionally Integrative Neuroscience, Aarhus University, Denmark