TRI Treatment Research Institute: Science Over Addiction

SENIOR TRI INVESTIGATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS

Section on Adolescents

Ken C. Winters, Ph.D., is Director of the Center for Adolescent Substance Abuse Research and a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, positions he retains during his affiliation with TRI. Dr. Winters’ research interests include problem gambling as well as adolescent drug abuse, including adolescent brain development and substance abuse and use of brief intervention with youthful substance abusers. Winters has served on several state and federal panels and committees related to drug abuse and pathological gambling, including the National Institute on Drug Abuse and the National Research Council's Committee on the Social and Economic Impact of Pathological Gambling. His many consultant positions include the Hazelden Foundation, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, World Health Organization, and the Mentor Foundation (an international drug abuse prevention organization).

Amelia M. Arria, Ph.D., Senior Scientist, is an adolescent and young-adult specialist at TRI while she retains her position as Deputy Director of Research at the Center for Substance Abuse Research (CESAR) at the University of Maryland, College Park. Her primary area of interest is the identification of risk factors for adolescent and young adult drug involvement. She is also involved in research evaluating the safety and efficacy of buprenorphine and methadone for pregnant opioid-dependent women, prenatal methamphetamine exposure, and characterizing faith-based elements of drug treatment.

Section on Addiction in Health Care

A. Thomas McLellan, Ph.D., Co-Director. Best known for his pioneering introduction of the Addiction Severity Index and Treatment Services Review in the 1980s, McLellan later conceptualized data-driven measurement of treatment effectiveness, performance-based monitoring, and analysis of the nation’s substance abuse treatment system as an “industry” beset with the same organizational, staffing and funding problems overcome in other problem-plagued industries. Through his research and extensive knowledge of substance abuse treatment systems, McLellan has become a persuasive proponent of the view that addiction is a chronically relapsing condition, one that must be continually monitored and managed. McLellan has published more than 400 articles and chapters on addiction research and serves as Editor in Chief of the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. He serves on the editorial boards and as a reviewer of numerous medical and scientific journals, and is advisor to numerous government and nonprofit scientific organizations, including the Office of National Drug Control Policy, Research and Evaluation; the National Practice Laboratory of the American Psychiatric Association, the Swiss National Science Foundation, the World Health Organization, and the Greek government.

Barbara J. Turner, M.D., Co-Director. is a Professor of Medicine and Director of the Physician-Scientist Fellowship in General Internal Medicine at the University of Pennsylvania School of Medicine. She is currently the President of the Society of General Internal Medicine. She is also a senior fellow of the Leonard Davis Institute, a member of the Cancer Center, and an associate member of the Center for Clinical Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Pennsylvania. She is the co-director of the Program of Research in Substance Use in Mainstream Healthcare (PRISM) that addresses the effect of alcohol and drugs on common chronic conditions. She has over 90 peer-reviewed publications and also serves as an Associate Editor of the Annals of Internal Medicine. She has substantial experience in research on using administrative databases and pharmacy claims data to evaluate care. Her primary fields of interest relate to inequities in preventive care and medical care for vulnerable populations including drug users. Her research on these topics has focused on HIV infection, colon cancer, illicit drug use, and cardiovascular disease.