Faculty and Staff

Nate Phillips graduated from the University of Florida with bachelor’s degrees in journalism and political science. At CAM, he works with Dr. Gilman on the functional near-infrared spectroscopy (fNIRS) study to assess the cognitive effects of marijuana and alcohol, along with Dr. Maravic on the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) study to investigate the impact of integrated smoking cessation treatment on care provided to smokers with serious mental illness.

Dr. Kevin Potter graduated from Grinnell College with a B.A. in Psychology and received his Ph.D. in Quantitative Psychology from the 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.

Dr. Caroline Yeh received her Ph.D. in Medical Physics from Purdue University in 2018. She began working at the Center for Addiction Medicine in September of 2018, where she is currently researching how white matter integrity is affected by prenatal expose of tobacco and marijuana and how white matter structure changes in marijuana users with PTSD. Her research interests include diagnosis improving and early detection of health effects from the substance use by neuroimaging.

Dr. Meena M. Makary is an Assistant Professor in the Biomedical Engineering Department at Cairo University. Currently, he holds a joint appointment as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School and a Research Fellow in the Center of Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital. He joined the neuroimaging team to study the underlying causes and risk factors of addictive behavior and to test new treatments for addictive disorders. In 2017, Dr. Makary worked as a Postdoctoral Associate at the John B. Pierce Laboratory and as a Postdoctoral Fellow in the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine. He worked on investigating the interrelation between chronic pain and obesity using structural and functional brain imaging. During his time as Ph.D. student, he used real-time fMRI neurofeedback to investigate the brain plasticity after self-regulation of motor brain areas during motor imagery tasks. Dr. Makary is the Career Development and Mentoring Manager for the OHBM student and post-doctorate special interest group. Dr. Makary was honored with the 2017 Best Ph.D. Thesis Award in Engineering among Kyung Hee University graduates. He also received several merit conference paper awards including the Best Oral Presentation Award, ICCMR’15; Merit Abstract Travel Stipend Award, OHBM’17; and Geographic Finalist, IEEE EMBC’17.

Sarah Hickey received her B.S. in Neuroscience at Stonehill College and received her B.S. in Nursing from Northeastern University.  She began working at CAM in March of 2019, where she is currently a co-investigator on Dr. Gilman’s study which uses functional near-infrared spectroscopy to assess the cognitive effects of alcohol and marijuana. She also works on Dr. Gilman's other study examining the effects of medical marijuana on neurocognition and escalation of use.

Dr. Evins is The Cox Family Professor of Psychiatry in the field of Addiction Medicine, 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 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 the 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 consecutive NIDA funding to conduct, as PI, studies of efficacy of pharmacotherapeutic cessation aids in smokers with and without serious mental illness, of the effect of nicotine on cognitive performance in those with and without schizophrenia, 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 and a newer line of investigation into 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, has authored 100 publications, including 42 publications with a mentee as first author.

Email: a_eden_evins@hms.harvard.edu

Dr. Kelly is the Elizabeth R. Spallin Associate Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School, the founder and Director of the Recovery Research Institute at MGH. The American Psychological Association (APA) Society of Addiction Psychology, and is also a Fellow of APA. He has served as a consultant to U.S. federal agencies such as the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP), the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the national Institutes of Health (NIH); to non-Federal institutions, such as the Betty Ford Institute and the Hazelden Foundation; and internationally to foreign governments. He is currently an Associate Editor for the journals, Addiction, and the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. He has published more than 100 peer-reviewed articles, reviews, and chapters in the field of addiction. His clinical and research work has focused on addiction treatment and the recovery process which has included specific research on the effectiveness of mutual-help groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous, as adjuncts to formal care. His additional research endeavors have focused on 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

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

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 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 Of 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 substances 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

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 postdoctoral 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 5-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

Dr. Pachas received her medical degree from the San Martin de Porres University and health services management and public health training from the National University Mayor de San Marcos in Lima, Peru, and she completed an Addictions Fellowship at Harvard Medical School. Her research interests are the development of behavioral treatments and new evidence-based novel treatment 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 them for smoking cessation and relapse prevention.

Email: gpachas1@mgh.harvard.edu

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 receipient 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 features in media outlets throughout the wrold, including Reuter’s, 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

Dr Maravic received her BA from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities and her MPH with a concentration in epidemiology and biostatistics from Boston University School of Public Health. She joined CAM as a research fellow in 2005 where she focused on identifying predictors of smoking cessation among those with schizophrenia. She received her PhD in Medical Anthropology and Social Science Research Methods from the University Professors Program at Boston University. Her research interests are understanding and improving the health and mental health of vulnerable populations, with a specific focus on addiction, trauma and psychotic disorders. After spending several years as director of research and evaluation at a Latino community health center and as director of analytics and behavioral science at a health engagement management company, she has returned to CAM as Project Director of the PCORI project “Integrated Smoking Cessation Treatment for Smokers with Serious Mental Illness.”

Email: mmaravic@partners.org

Dr Schulman completed medical degree at University of California, San Francisco (UCSF). He completed residency training in adult psychiatry at Massachusetts General Hospital/McLean Hospital. Dr Schulman works as a study physician on several smoking cessation studies at CAM.

Email: bschulman@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Acra completed his residency training in adult psychiatry at Hahnemann University, Philadelphia, PA where he was Chief Resident and an Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Currently Dr. Acra is an Assistant in Research at MGH and a Clinical Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School. Dr Acra works as a study physician/co-investigator on several smoking cessation studies at CAM, as well as practices community psychiatry with the Latino and Cambodian population in Chelsea and East Boston. He is also the medical director of the Boston Rescue Mission, a homeless shelter in Downtown Crossing.

Email: jacra@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Hoeppner is the statistical expert at CAM. Originally trained in ecology (PhD in Oceanography and Coastal Sciences, Louisiana State University, 2008), Dr. S. Hoeppner joined the CAM to pursue her growing research interests in the role of positive affect in recovery from addiction, and the potential of leveraging advances made in positive psychology to support cessation of addictive behaviors. She is a research scientist and statistician with expertise in research design and advanced statistical methods (Masters in Applied Statistics, LSU, 2005) including longitudinal data analysis. Currently, Dr. Hoeppner advises, supports and collaborates on numerous research projects in the field of smoking cessation, focusing on smoking behavior, affect, health outcomes, psychiatric symptom severity, and cognitive task performance.

Email: shoeppner@mgh.harvard.edu

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 predoctoral clinical internship in the MGH/HMS Department of Psychiatry. He completed a combined clinical/research postdoctoral fellowship at ARMS and CAM in 2014.

Email: bgbergman@mgh.harvard.edu

Peter Bannigan is the financial manager at CAM. Peter received his Master in Business Administration from The State University of New York at Albany and BS in Agriculture  from Cornell. His work at CAM is limited to Financial Analysis.

Email: pbannigan@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Kristina Cieslak graduated from NYU School of Medicine in 2015, and is a current resident in the MGH/McLean Adult Psychiatry Residency Program. Her research interests center on improving quality of life and health outcomes for individuals with serious mental illness in the community setting. In conjunction with the MGH Schizophrenia Program, Freedom Trail Clinic, MGH Department of Medicine and Diabetes Center, she is conducting a study of and co-leading an educational and behavioral group intervention for individuals with schizophrenia and diabetes. Other projects include providing academic detailing to primary care physicians as a part of the PCORI project “Integrated Smoking Cessation Treatment for Smokers with Serious Mental Illness” and working to improve engagement of psychiatric patients in smoking cessation treatment in the inpatient setting.

Email: kcieslak@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

Christine Ulysse received her B.S. in Biometry & Statistics at Cornell University in 2014 and completed her Master’s in Biostatistics at Harvard T. H. Chan School of Public Health in 2017. Throughout her academic career, she has worked on various projects relating to sedation management strategy in children with severe lung disease, prenatal exposure to maternal stress and childhood wheeze, associations between sexual dysfunction and inflammatory bowel disease and improving the rate of linkage and retention in HIV care in Brazil.

Email: caulysse@mgh.harvard.edu

Lauren Scott received her Bachelor’s degree from the University of New Hampshire where she majored in Health Management and Policy. She is the Grant Administrator for the Center for Addiction Medicine, primarily helping with grant submissions and managing post-award activities.

Email: LSCOTT6@MGH.HARVARD.EDU

Kerrin earned her BA in Anthropology from Vassar College in 2014 and is currently pursuing her MBA through Johns Hopkins University. She is the Grant Administrator for the Center for Addiction Medicine and Behavioral Medicine divisions within the Psychiatry Department at MGH.

Email: kjpoole@partners.org

Dr. Schuster is a licensed clinical psychologist. She received her BA from University of Maryland, College Park and her PhD in Clinical Psychology from 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

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

Nina Levar received her B.Sc. in computer science/Bioinformatics from Heinrich-Heine University of Dusseldorf/Germany and received her M.Sc. in Brain & Cognitive Sciences from the University of Amsterdam/The Netherlands.  She pursued her Ph.D. at the Academic Medical Center/University of Amsterdam in the field of cognitive neuroimaging focusing on emotion regulation and fear learning. In October 2016, she joined CAM to continue her focus on neuroimaging research under Dr. Gilman. Her research focuses on understanding the neural correlates of marijuana use in young healthy adults, as well as the impact of marijuana on psychiatric disorders. She has extensive expertise in fMRI acquisition and analysis, as well as magnetic resonance spectroscopy, EEG, and psychophysiology.

Email: nina.levar@mgh.harvard.edu

Dr. Kate Bentley received her PhD in Clinical Psychology in 2017 from Boston University and completed her pre-doctoral internship in the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy track at Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School. Her research is largely focused on the development, evaluation, and implementation of transdiagnostic interventions for suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious thoughts and behaviors. Her postdoctoral fellowship involves testing a transdiagnostic, emotion-focused, group-based intervention for young adults with substance use disorders and co-occurring emotional distress (anxiety, depression, suicidal ideation, and/or non-suicidal self-injury).

Email: kbentley@mgh.harvard.edu

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 instructor at Harvard Medical School. His current research, supported by NIAAA and internal awards from Massachusetts General Hospital, Harvard Medical School, and Harvard University, is seeking to better understand affective and psychophysiological factors that heighten addiction relapse risk. Additionally, Dr. Eddie is conducting research aimed at 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 membership 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

Alexandra Plante is the Marketing Communications Coordinator of the Recovery Research Institute. She manages written and visual content across social media accounts, the recoveryanswers.org website, the Recovery Research Review monthly newsletter, and coordinates all media inquiries to the institute. Alexandra received her B.A in Communication at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst and her M.A in Quantitative Research in Communication from the University at Buffalo. In addition to substance use treatment and recovery, her research interests include studies of human behavior and decision-making.

Email: aplante1@mgh.harvard.edu

Eve Manghis graduated with her AB in Social Studies from Harvard College in 2016. At CAM she works on the PCORI-funded study investigating integrated smoking cessation treatment for smokers with serious mental illness. She also coordinates Dr. Jodi Gilman’s fNIRS study examining the effects of marijuana on the brain and Dr. Nina Levar’s trauma study on decision making and marijuana use. Her research interests include the neurological impacts of substance use on cognition and mental illness and the role of social and economic factors in determining mental health outcomes.

Email: emanghis@mgh.harvard.edu

Mike obtained his BS in Biology from the University of Massachusetts in Boston. He is involved in the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI) project at the Center for Addiction Medicine aiming to integrate smoking cessation medicines to people with serious mental illness. Mike’s main interest in translational addiction research and global dissemination of new medical discoveries.  

Email: mvilme@mgh.harvard.edu

Christopher McGovern graduated from Stonehill College with a BA in Psychology. His current role at CAM involves working as a research coordinator on a study investigating integrated smoking cessation treatment for smokers with serious mental illness, which is funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute. He is primarily interested in the correlates between substance abuse, serious mental illness, and suicide.

Email: cmcgovern3@mgh.harvard.edu

Christie Yunyao Wu graduated from Tufts University in 2016, where she majored in clinical psychology. At CAM, she currently  coordinates an NIH-funded clinical trial that investigates Nicotine Reduction in Cigarette Smokers with Mood and Anxiety Disorders. Her research interests include substance use disorder in low- and /or middle-income countries and how cultural factors affect substance use and treatment efficacy. She is also interested in co-occurring  substance use and mood disorders in a global context

Email: ywu20@mgh.harvard.edu

Maya Hareli graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst, where she completed her B.A. in Psychology and a minor in Education. She currently coordinates a study examining the efficacy of a contingency management plan on abstinence from cannabis, as well as the effects of cannabis abstinence on cognition, in high school-aged adolescents. Her research interests include the development of school-based prevention and intervention programs for children and adolescents with comorbid psychopathology as well as understanding the relation between addiction and psychopathology.

Email: mhareli@mgh.harvard.edu

Alyson Dechert graduated with her BA in Psychology from Whittier College. At CAM, she works primarily with Dr. Gilman on a study which examines the effects of medical marijuana on neurocognition and escalation of use. She also works on the fNIRS study, which uses a novel imaging device to detect acute intoxication of THC. Additionally, she works with Drs. Cather and Schnitzer on a study which uses a behavioral intervention to help people with serious mental illness manage their type 2 diabetes. Her research interests are in clinical psychology, and she is particularly interested in studying depression treatment methods which combine therapeutic and pharmacological approaches. She plans to apply for PhD programs in clinical psychology to continue studying these topics.

Email: adechert@mgh.harvard.edu

Hannah Broos graduated from Bowdoin College with a coordinate degree in Psychology and Education. At CAM she is working primarily on the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute funded study investigating integrated smoking cessation treatment for smokers with serious mental illness. Her research interests include the comorbidity of mental illness and substance use disorders, along with the role of emotion processing in the development and expression of psychopathology.

Email: hbroos@mgh.harvard.edu

Kelsey Lowman graduated from Princeton University in 2017 with an A.B. in Psychology. At CAM, she primarily works on a study funded by the Patient-Centered Outcomes Research Institute (PCORI), investigating the impact of integrated smoking cessation treatment on care provided to smokers with severe mental illness.

She is principally interested in how substance use relates to emotion dysregulation, self- and other-directed aggression, and externalizing behaviors more broadly.

Email: klowman@mgh.harvard.edu

Rachel Plummer graduated from William and Mary with a bachelors degree in psychology. At CAM she is primarily working with Dr. Gilman on the medical marijuana research study, which looks at the effects of medical marijuana on neurocognition and escalation of use. Her research interests include the development of substance abuse prevention programs for youth and reducing stigma surrounding mental illness. She plans to pursue a PhD in clinical health psychology in the next couple of years.

Email: rplummer1@mgh.harvard.edu