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SENIOR TRI INVESTIGATORS AND ADMINISTRATORS


Section on Treatment Systems Research

Deni Carise, Ph.D. is an expert in the organization and delivery of treatment services in the nation’s substance abuse treatment system. Developer of the White House-funded DENS™ data collection, assessment and treatment support system, Dr. Carise designs data collection strategies and training programs helping counselors introduce and measure evidence-based practices in substance abuse treatment. She has been Principal Investigator on numerous NIH-funded grants; her computer-assisted patient assessment and referral system, “CASPAR,” funded by both NIDA and NIAAA, has been demonstrated to increase matching of patients to the auxiliary services they need for recovery. Her DENS™ and CASPAR work has been replicated nationally and internationally in countries such as Thailand, Nigeria, Egypt and others. Beginning 2010, Dr. Carise splits her time between TRI and Phoenix House where she is Senior Vice-President and Chief Clinical Officer. Dr Carise is an Adjunct Clinical Professor at the University of Pennsylvania.

Adam C. Brooks, Ph.D. is a Research Scientist working on continuous care and adaptive treatment protocols, along with performance-based contracting strategies. Dr. Brooks has a Ph.D. in clinical psychology with a specialization in marital and family therapy from St. John’s University. Prior to joining TRI, he was at the Columbia University Division on Substance Abuse where he treated substance abusing patients using a variety of empirically validated treatments. He is an expert supervisor in Motivational Interviewing, and part of a team at Columbia developing a teleconferenced form of supervision for distance learning of the technique. His research interests include computer-assisted treatment and training interventions, use of phone technology in treatment and recovery monitoring, and workforce development in the use of evidence-based practices.

Amy A. Mericle, Ph.D. Dr. Mericle received Bachelor’s of Arts and Master’s of Social Work degrees from the University of Michigan. Prior to receiving her doctoral degree from the University of Chicago, she worked as a research assistant at the Northwestern University Psycho-Legal Studies Program. Dr. Mericle’s dissertation examined HIV/AIDS risk behavior among participants in the Northwestern Juvenile Project, a longitudinal study led by Linda Teplin, Ph.D. examining the mental health and substance abuse service needs and service use of detained adolescents. After completing her doctoral degree, Dr. Mericle accepted a post-doctoral fellowship at the University of California’s San Francisco Treatment Research Center where she worked with Barbara Havassy, Ph.D. examining violence and social networks among individuals with co-occurring mental and substance use disorders. Dr. Mericle is currently working with Deni Carise, Ph.D. and is Principal Investigator on TRI’s Detection, Advice, Referral To Services (DARTS) project. Her research interests include co-occurring disorders and complications of substance abuse, social networks and treatment seeking, and treatment linkage among disparate systems of care. Dr. Mericle is a member (in training) of the College for Problems of Drug Dependence and the American Public Health Association. She holds a diplomate in measurement from the Institute of Objective Measurement.

Treatment Research Solutions Group

Ms. Meghan Love, Senior Program Manager, has significant past project experience that includes management of counselor training studies on electronic resource guides linking substance abuse patients to low-cost auxiliary services (NIDA and NIAAA funding), and coordination of a NIDA R21 Exploratory Grant evaluating a concurrent recovery monitoring project in the state of Delaware. From 1998 to 2004 she managed the ONDCP-funded DENS project, a multi-site electronic data collection and reporting system that tracked patterns of drug and alcohol abuse across the nation. Other NIDA-funded studies she managed include, in collaboration with the University of Pennsylvania, a study of patient-treatment matching utilizing the ASI as the primary data collection tool; development of an Employee Assistance Program survey estimating the prevalence of drug and alcohol abuse in school and workplace populations; and development of the Substance Abuse Relapse Reduction System (SARRS) for early detection of individuals at high risk for relapse during the critical first six months of the post-treatment recovery period. The empirically-developed products and services Ms. Love has helped TRI introduce include the Risk and Needs Triage™ helping court officials assign drug-involved offenders to the appropriate disposition; TRI-CEP™, a web-based system to adaptively manage clients and conduct problem-solving court evaluation; and CASPAR-C™, an electronic patient assessment and referral system.

Van Lam, Web Product Developer, provides technical leadership to teams of researchers, administrators and other specialists on science-based product development. He also serves as technical liaison to state and local government purchasers for adaptive, support and training functions. Mr. Lam led technical development of TRI’s Risk and Needs Triage™, TRI-CEP™, and CASPAR-C™, a software application helping treatment counselors create a searchable database of patient services available in their area. He was senior developer for the ONDCP-funded DENS™, an ASI-based patient assessment tool linking client assessment to treatment planning. Other pending projects include an electronic decision support system enabling continuous recovery monitoring at the provider level. Mr. Lam joined TRI in 1996 following other positions in the Philadelphia area at Merck Pharmaceuticals and Corning-Besselaar. He is a 2002 graduate of Drexel University where he earned a Bachelor of Science in Computer Science.

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