Past Fellows Talk
At the Center for Addiction Medicine, post-doctoral fellows work on a range of independent, patient-oriented clinical or translational addiction research projects with dedicated mentors. Fellows work with senior faculty to drive the innovative work of the Center, and their intellectual contributions are critical. This kind of environment has helped former fellows develop into recognized professional members of the field, with many of them going on to produce influential scholarly work, to obtain prestigious grant funding, and to accept academic positions within Harvard or elsewhere after they complete the fellowship.
Some former fellows reflect on their experience:
Johanna Burke, MD
CAM Research Fellowship: 2008-2010
Current Position: Assistant Professor, University of Massachusetts Medical School Worcester-Psychiatry Department; Attending Psychiatrist, UMASS Ambulatory Psychiatry Clinic
The Addiction Research Fellowship at the Center for Addiction Medicine gave me the opportunity to work closely with Dr. Eden Evins as well as many other renowned scientists such as John Kelly. During my two years as a research fellow at the Center for Addiction Medicine, I learned and participated in every stage of the research process, including grant writing, IRB coordination, study design, data collection, data management, supervision of regulatory matters at different clinical sites, and treatment delivery, and was also able to co-author papers.
I worked on multisite clinical trials in smoking cessation to test new pharmacological and non-pharmacological therapies in people with mental illness and otherwise healthy smokers. In addition, being at CAM gave me the opportunity to attend the weekly Psychiatry Department Grand Rounds and CAM Grand Rounds, where I interacted with nationally and internationally recognized researchers. As an International M.D., this fellowship helped me obtain a position in residency training in Psychiatry.
Tsafrir Loebl, MD
INVEST-CAM Clinical Fellow: 2005-2007
CAM Research Physician: 2007-2009.
Current Position: Chief, Partial Hospitalization Unit, Jerusalem Mental Health Center, Kfar Shaul Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel
With the help of the Center for Addiction Medicine and the MGH Addiction Psychiatry program, I was able to get a NIDA INVEST fellowship. After my fellowship, I stayed at CAM for a few more years working as a study physician. I gained experience in all aspects of clinical research and addiction, as well as meeting some great people and having fun. After returning to Israel, I coordinated the inpatient dual diagnosis program of the Jerusalem Mental Health Center, where I am currently chief of the partial hospitalization unit at Kfar-Shaul Psychiatric Hospital.
Gustavo Angarita, MD
CAM Research Fellow
Current Position: Assistant Inpatient Chief of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU) of the Connecticut Mental Heath Center (CMHC)/Yale University School of Medicine
I completed two years of combined clinical and research training with my Partners Healthcare Addictions Psychiatry Fellowship. The research component was based at the MGH Center for Addiction Medicine.
As a fellow, I worked on multisite clinical trials, imaging studies on medication development, and industry-sponsored studies. This broad exposure gave me the opportunity to learn the intricacies of clinical research. The experience was paired with staff and manuscript meetings and CAM Grand Rounds, complementing my academic development as I acquired and improved my statistical and writing skills, and my knowledge about research methods and the biology of substance use disorders.
The fellowship helped me obtain a position in the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit of the Connecticut Mental Health Center/Yale University School of Medicine, where I am an instructor. My research has led to NIH grant applications, scholar awards, and manuscripts contributing to our understanding of and the treatment of cocaine use disorder.
Past Fellows
Ruth S. Barr, MB BCH CAM
Research Fellow: 2004-2007
Current Position: Consultant Psychiatrist at Belfast Health and Social Care Trust,
Queens University Belfast, United Kingdom
Karsten Kueppenbender, MD CAM
Clinical Addiction Psychiatry Fellow: 2005-2006
Research Interests: Addiction, pain medicine, psychotherapy, and psychopharmacology.
Current Position: Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Associate Medical Director at MGH West End Clinic
Lindsay Jubelt, MD, MS
CAM Clinical Research Fellowship: 2005-2006
Research Interests: Care coordination and delivery system redesign. She aims to strengthen the health system’s role as a learning laboratory to improve the quality and value of care provided to patients.
Current Position: Medical Director of Population Health at Mount Sinai Health System; Assistant Professor of Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine
Rocco Iannucci, MD
CAM Clinical Addiction Psychiatry Fellow: 2006 – 2007
Research Interests: Treatment of people with severe substance use disorders and those with co-occurring mental health conditions.
Current Position: Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Director of Addiction Psychiatry at McLean Fernside Hospital, Princeton, MA
Melissa Culhane Maravic, PhD, MPH
CAM Research Fellow: 2005-2006
Research Interests: Understanding and improving the health of vulnerable populations, with a specific focus on addiction, trauma, and psychotic disorders. Other interests include medical anthropology, qualitative methods, biostatistics, epidemiology, and mixed methods research design.
Current Position: Director at PRECISIONheor
Tsafrir Loebl, MD
CAM Research Fellow: 2005-2007, NIDA INVEST Fellowship
Current Position: Chief of the Partial Hospitalization Unit at Jerusalem Mental Health Center, Kfar-Shaul Hospital, Jerusalem, Israel
Carl Anderson, PhD
NARSAD Young Investigator Award: 2008 – 2010
Research Interests: The use of MRI in combination with objective behavioral assessments to study brain development and understanding the origin of substance abuse in childhood, and the implications of a new view of brain function centered on the evolutionary and ontogenetically important cerebellum.
Current Position: Assistant Psychobiologist in the Developmental Biopsychiatry Research Program at McLean Hospital Assistant; Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Gladys N. Pachas, MD
CAM Addiction Research Fellowship: 2008 – 2010
Research Interests: 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.
Current Position: Program Director of the Center for Addiction Medicine at Massachusetts General Hospital; Instructor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Johanna Burke, MD
CAM Research Fellowship: 2008-2010
Current Position: Adult Psychiatrist at Harvard Vanguard Medical Associates
Zev Schuman-Olivier, MD, PhD
CAM Research Fellow: 2009-2013
Research Interests: Buprenorphine treatment and mindfulness-oriented intervention for addictive disorders.
Current Position: Director of the Center for Mindfulness and Compassion; Director of Addiction Research at Cambridge Health Alliance; Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Luke Stoeckel, PhD
CAM Research Fellow: 2009-2013
Research Interests: Investigation of brain-behavior relationships and pathophysiology of disorders such as obesity and diabetes and their intersection with other neurological and psychiatric diseases with the aim of identifying novel therapeutics based on this knowledge.
Current Position: Director of the Decision Neuroscience in Aging Program at the National Institute on Aging (NIA) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH)
Amy Janes, PhD
CAM Clinical Research Fellow: 2010-2016
Research Interests: Identifying individual vulnerabilities for developing and maintaining addictive disorders, evaluating brain changes following treatment, and determining how other cognitive, affective, and psychiatric disorders contribute to addiction.
Current Position: Associate Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Director of Functional Integration of Addiction Research Laboratory at McLean Imaging Center
Gustavo Angarita, MD
CAM Research Fellow: 2010-2012
Research Interests: The development of neurobiologically informed medication treatments for cocaine dependence, such as those based on homeostatic changes on the glutamatergic pathways.
Current Position: Assistant Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Yale School of Medicine; Director of Yale Cocaine Research Clinic; Inpatient Chief of the Clinical Neuroscience Research Unit (CNRU) of the Connecticut Mental Health Center (CHMC); Medical Director at Forensic Drug Diversion Clinic
Sungwon Roh, MD
CAM Research Fellow (South Korean Government Fellowship): 2011-2014
Research Interests: Substance use and brain reward circuit, impulsivity and behavioral addiction including internet addiction. Psychiatric Genetics: depression and suicide, schizophrenia, and other psychiatric disorders. Psychopharmacology and Pharmacogenomics: anticraving agents, antipsychotics, and antidepressants.
Current Position: Director of the Department of Mental Health Research, National Center for Mental Health Research & Education, Seoul National Hospital, Korea; Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Hanyang University, Korea
Lauren Moran, MD, MPH
CAM Clinical Research Fellow: 2012-13
Research Interests: Schizophrenia.
Current Position: Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School; Director of the McLean Pharmacoepidemiology Laboratory; Psychiatrist in Charge at the Schizophrenia and Bipolar Disorder Inpatient Program at McLean Hospital
Brandon G. Bergman, PhD
CAM Research Fellow: 2013-2015
Research Interests: Substance use disorder treatment and recovery among young adults, including those with co-occurring psychiatric disorders.
Current Position: Assistant Professor of Psychology at Harvard Medical School; Associate Director at the Recovery Research Institute (RRI)
Jodi Gilman, PhD
Harvard Zinberg Fellowship in Clinical Addiction Research: 2012-2013
Research Interests: Acute and long-term effects of addiction on the brain, specifically on neural circuitry underlying emotion and decision-making throughout the initiation, continuance, and cessation of drug and alcohol use. She is using brain-imaging paradigms to understand decision-making throughout different stages of drug use in young adult users.
Current Position: Director of Neuroscience at the Center for Addiction Medicine; Assistant Professor in Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School
Hasan Onur Keles, PhD
CAM Research Fellow: 2015-2017
Research Interests: As a biomedical engineer, he focuses on neuroimaging techniques to understand the acute and long-term effects of addiction (cannabis) on the brain
Current Position: Assistant Professor in Biomedical Engineering at Ankara University
Nina Levar, PhD
Research Fellow: 2016-2018
Research Interests: Neural correlates of marijuana use in young healthy adults, as well as the impact of marijuana on psychiatric disorders.
Jawad Husain, MD
CAM Research Fellow:
Research Interests: Addiction psychiatry and research on cannabidiol as a novel psychopharmacological therapy.
Current Position:
Kathryn Hagan Bentley, PhD
Clinical and Research Fellow:
Research Interests: The development, evaluation, and implementation of transdiagnostic interventions for suicidal and non-suicidal self-injurious thoughts and behaviors.
Current Position: Assistant Professor, Department of Psychology, Massachusetts General Hospital/Harvard Medical School