Faculty and Staff

Research Fellow/Statistician

Dr. Kevin Potter graduated from Grinnell College with a B.A. in Psychology and received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology from Ohio State University. He began working for the Center for Addiction Medicine in August of 2018 as a statistician. His research involves applying modern statistical and cognitive modeling approaches to diverse clinical data sets, and developing approachable statistical tools for applied practitioners.

Project Manager, iDECIDE

Caroline Gray received a Bachelor of Science in Psychology from Virginia Tech and her M.S.W. from the University of South Carolina. Caroline joined CAM in July 2021 and works primarily on the iDECIDE project, under Dr. Randi Schuster. Prior to her time at CAM, she was at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, where she was a project manager of the SAMHSA funded initiative, the Opioid Response Network, as well as at the Grayken Center for Addiction at Boston Medical Center. Prior to her work in project management, she was a staff therapist at South Bay Community Services, where she provided community-based behavioral health services in the Southcoast region of Massachusetts. Her professional interests include increasing access to culturally responsive prevention, treatment, and recovery resources and services for substance use disorders.

Dr. Brenden Tervo-Clemmens is a post-doctoral fellow at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School in the MGH/NIDA K12 Career Development Program in Substance Use and Addiction Medicine. Brenden received his Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology in 2021 from the University of Pittsburgh, with secondary training in Cognitive Neuroscience from Carnegie Mellon University, and completed his pre-doctoral clinical internship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. His research focuses on the neurodevelopment of externalizing psychopathology (impulsivity, risk-taking) and substance use during adolescence. He is also engaged in methodological research that aims to evaluate and improve the utility of large-scale functional neuroimaging (fMRI) and smartphone assessment in these areas.

Founding Director and Principal Investigator, Center for Addiction Medicine; Cox Family Professor of Psychiatry in the Field of Addiction Medicine, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Evins is the Cox Family Professor of Psychiatry in the field of addiction medicine at Harvard Medical School and the founder and director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at MGH. Dr. Evins completed her residency in adult psychiatry at the Massachusetts Mental Health Center and the Longwood Psychiatry Residency Training Program. In addition, she completed a fellowship in molecular biology at the Mailman Research Center of McLean Hospital, a fellowship in clinical research at Massachusetts General Hospital, and a Masters in Public Health with a concentration in Clinical Effectiveness at the Harvard School of Public Health in 2005.

Dr. Evins has 17 years of consecutive NIDA funding to conduct, as PI, studies of the efficacy of pharmacotherapeutic cessation aids in smokers with and without serious mental illness, and of the effect of nicotine on cognitive performance in those with and without schizophrenia. She has also conducted NIDA-funded studies of behavioral, physiologic, and fMRI-ascertained assessments of impulsivity, risk-taking, reactivity to drug-related cues, and the relationship between cue reactivity and relapse to drug use. A newer line of investigation explores the effect of cannabis on psychiatric symptoms, cognitive function, and addictive behaviors. She has conducted a series of studies that have changed clinical practice guidelines for smoking cessation for those with serious mental illness. Cochrane Reviews on smoking cessation in schizophrenia are based largely on this work (Tsoi et al.; 2010, 2013 Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews). Dr. Evins has extensive ties with Community Health Centers that have made it possible to conduct large clinical studies. She has been PI of a 10-site multi-center study conducted in community mental health centers across 6 US states.

She has mentored over 35 junior investigators, many with K awards, and has authored over 100 publications, including 42 publications with a mentee as first author.

Email: a_eden_evins@hms.harvard.edu

Associate Director, Center for Addiction Medicine; Program Director, Addiction Recovery Management Service; Founder and Director, Recovery Research Institute; Professor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Kelly is the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in the field of Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He is also the Founder and Director of the Recovery Research Institute at the Massachusetts General Hospital (MGH), the Associate Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine (CAM) at MGH, and the Program Director of the Addiction Recovery Management Service (ARMS). Dr. Kelly is a former President of the American Psychological Association's (APA) Society of Addiction Psychology, and is a Fellow of the APA and a Diplomate of the American Board of Professional Psychology. He has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies and non-federal institutions, as well as foreign governments and the United Nations. Dr. Kelly has published over 200 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, chapters, and books in the field of addiction medicine, and was an author on the U.S. Surgeon General's Report on Alcohol, Drugs, and Health. His clinical and research work has focused on addiction treatment and the recovery process, which has included the effectiveness of mutual-help groups such as Alcoholics Anonymous, the translation and implementation of evidence-based practice, addiction and criminal justice, addiction treatment theories and mechanisms of action, and reducing stigma associated with addiction.

Email: jkelly11@mgh.harvard.edu

Director of Psychological Services, MGH Schizophrenia Program; Psychologist, Massachusetts General Hospital; Associate Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Corinne Cather earned her undergraduate degree in biopsychology at Hamilton College in Clinton, NY and her doctorate in clinical psychology from Rutgers University where she received specialized training in cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) and behavioral medicine. She completed an internship at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (formerly Rutgers) and joined the Schizophrenia Clinical and Research Program in 1999 as a fellow. She has extensive experience as a clinician-researcher with first episode/early psychosis as well as with chronic schizophrenia and she has developed an international reputation as one of the few practitioners in the US skilled in cognitive behavioral therapy in schizophrenia. She has participated in a number of trials that investigate the efficacy of combined behavioral and psychopharmacological treatments for nicotine dependence in smokers with severe mental illness and has manualized treatments for enhancing motivation to quit smoking, smoking cessation, and relapse prevention for this population of smokers.

Email: ccather@mgh.harvard.edu

Director of Dual Diagnoses Studies at the Depression Clinical Research Program; Principal Investigator; Assistant Professor of Psychology, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Pedrelli is a clinical psychologist with expertise in comorbid disorders. She received her Ph.D in Clinical Psychology from the Joint Doctoral Program at the University of California San Diego and San Diego State University and completed her post-doctoral work at MGH. Her program of research focuses on explicating the etiology of co-occurring Mood Disorders and Alcohol Use Disorders and on developing psychosocial treatments for these conditions. She has been awarded funding from Harvard Medical School, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the ABMRF/The Foundation for Alcohol Research. Her current work includes a study examining the effectiveness of a novel psychosocial intervention for heavy drinking and depressive symptoms in college students, and a multi-method study investigating positive and negative reinforcement processes at the bases of binge drinking. She has published and presented extensively on the co-occurrence of depressive symptoms and substance use among college students. She is an expert in the delivery of CBT and developed several CBT-based treatment manuals for patients with co-occurring disorders.

Email: ppedrelli@mgh.harvard.edu

Director of Biostatistics and Principal Investigator, Center for Addiction Medicine; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Hoeppner is a health psychologist with expertise in fine-grained longitudinal methodology, which she uses to explicate the mechanisms underlying behavioral change. During her graduate training (Univ. of RI, MA in psychology in 2003, MS in statistics in 2005, Ph.D. in psychology in 2007), Dr. Hoeppner collaborated on numerous health behavior change projects, which used computer-delivered expert systems based on the Transtheoretical Model to provide participants with tailored intervention materials. Thereafter, she completed a post-doctoral fellowship at the Center of Alcohol and Addiction Studies at Brown University that focused on addictive behaviors, particularly alcohol and tobacco use in adolescents and young adults. Dr. Hoeppner joined the Center for Addiction Medicine in 2010. Her K01 research project uses Ecological Momentary Assessment (EMA) to delineate the temporal ordering of changes in smoking outcome expectancies relative to smoking cessation by collecting fine-grained, real-time data on college student smokers undergoing smoking cessation treatment. As such, her five-year K01 training and research plan builds upon her existing strengths of advanced statistical training and experience with theory-driven health behavior interventions to enable her to take full advantage of modern technology to delineate the causal mechanisms underlying the process of smoking cessation.

Email: Email: bhoeppner@mgh.harvard.edu

Program Director, Center for Addiction Medicine; Assistant in Research Psychiatry and Instructor of Psychiatry, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Pachas received her medical degree from San Martin de Porres University and received health services management and public health training from the National University Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru. She also completed an Addiction Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests are the development of behavioral treatments and evidence-based novel treatments for smoking cessation and relapse prevention in people with and without serious mental illness. Dr. Pachas is the recipient of the NIMH-NCDEU Young Investigator Award, the MGH Clinical Research Day Departmental Award in Psychiatry, the NIH-NIDA Interdisciplinary Research Training Institute on Hispanic Drug Abuse Fellowship, the American Society of Clinical Psychopharmacology Fellowship, and the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco Health Disparities Fellowship. Dr. Pachas is involved in the clinical component of complex Phase II trials of novel pharmacologic agents, all of which are being tested as treatments for smoking cessation and relapse prevention.

Email: gpachas1@mgh.harvard.edu

Director of Neuroscience and Principal Investigator, Center for Addiction Medicine; Associate Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Gilman received her BS from Tufts University in 2004, and her PhD in Neuroscience from Brown University in 2008, where she used neuroimaging techniques to study the acute and long-term functional and structural effects of alcohol on brain regions involved in motivation and emotion. She came to CAM in January 2013 to study the effects of cannabis on the brains of young adult users. She is the recipient of the Norman Zinberg Fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry from Harvard Medical School, as well as a Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse entitled “Neurobehavioral Characterization of Social Influence in Drug Addiction.” Dr. Gilman’s work has been featured in media outlets throughout the world, including Reuters, NPR’s Science Friday broadcast, and the BBC. More information on her work can be found at http://scholar.harvard.edu/jodigilman/news.

Email: jgilman1@mgh.harvard.edu

Associate Director, Research Recovery Institute; Instructor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Bergman is a research scientist in the Recovery Research Institute (RRI) within CAM, and a licensed staff psychologist in the hospital's Addiction Recovery Management Service (ARMS), where he treats adolescents and young adults with substance use disorders (SUD). He also serves nationally as the secretary for Division 50 of the American Psychological Association (Addiction Psychology). Dr. Bergman’s research interests include treatment/recovery among young adults with co-occurring SUD and psychiatric disorders as well as community-based mutual-help organizations. His work has been recognized by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA), and by an MGH/HMS institutional award. Dr. Bergman received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from Nova Southeastern University in Fort Lauderdale, FL, including a pre-doctoral clinical internship in the MGH/HMS Department of Psychiatry. He completed a combined clinical/research post-doctoral fellowship at ARMS and CAM in 2014.

Email: bgbergman@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Aurora Quaye is a clinical investigator at the Center of Addiction Medicine and an Instructor in Anesthesia at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Quaye received her BA in Neuroscience and Behavior from Wesleyan University and her MD from Harvard Medical School.  Dr. Quaye completed her residency in Anesthesia, Critical Care and Pain Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital and her fellowship in Regional Anesthesia and Acute Pain Medicine at Brigham and Women’s Hospital. She serves as a member of the Acute Pain Service and the Opioid Task Force at Massachusetts General Hospital. Dr. Quaye is currently conducting research on identifying perioperative opioid reduction strategies for patients at risk of, or suffering from, opioid use disorders.

Email: aquaye@partners.org

Director of Neuropsychology and Principal Investigator, Center for Addiction Medicine; Assistant Professor, Harvard Medical School

Dr. Schuster is a licensed clinical psychologist. She received her BA from the University of Maryland, College Park and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Illinois at Chicago in 2014. In graduate school, she was funded by a NIDA National Research Service Award to study the cognitive effects of cannabis and tobacco use among at-risk young adults using ecological momentary assessment. She joined CAM in July 2014 as a post-doctoral fellow after completing her clinical internship in neuropsychology at MGH/Harvard Medical School. She was the recipient of the Norman Zinberg Fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry and the Livingston Fellowship from Harvard Medical School as well as the Louis V. Gerstner III Research Scholar Award from MGH. She is currently funded off of a five-year K23 from NIH-NIDA, which is examining the utility of contingency management interventions in promoting cannabis abstinence as well as the reversibility of cognitive deficits during 30 days of cannabis discontinuation among high school-aged adolescents.

Email: rschuster@mgh.harvard.edu

Research Fellow

Dr. Vilsaint is a community psychologist. She is a research fellow at Harvard Medical School and a Principal Investigator at the Recovery Research Institute and Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. Her research has focused on racial health equality in remission and recovery from addiction. She has been supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and is currently supported by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA).

Email: cvilsaint@mgh.harvard.edu

Research Scientist

Dr. David Eddie is a research scientist at Massachusetts General Hospital’s Center for Addiction Medicine and Recovery Research Institute, a clinical psychologist in Massachusetts General Hospital’s Department of Psychiatry, and an assistant professor at Harvard Medical School. His current NIAAA-supported research is seeking to better understand affective and psychophysiological factors that heighten addiction relapse risk with the aim of developing cutting-edge mobile health (mHealth) interventions driven by wearable biosensors. He is also interested in addiction treatment and recovery processes, as well as drug and treatment policy, and is finance chair for the American Psychological Association’s Society of Addiction Psychology.

A licensed clinical psychologist, Dr. Eddie received his Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University with honors in psychology, and his PhD from Rutgers University, where he conducted research at the Center of Alcohol Studies. Dr. Eddie undertook his clinical residency at Massachusetts General Hospital before completing his post-doctoral training as a Harvard Medical School Livingston Fellow at the Recovery Research Institute.

Email: deddie@mgh.harvard.edu