In the 22 years since she received her doctoral degree in psychology from the University of California at Los Angeles, Dr. Amaro’s research and scientific publications have focused on substance use among adolescent girls, drug abuse treatment for Latina and African American women, HIV/AIDS prevention, mental health treatment issues for women and racial/ethnic health disparities. She is Distinguished Professor at the Bouve College of Health Sciences and Director of the Institute on Urban Health Research at Northeastern University.

Her research has resulted in over 70 scientific publications on epidemiological and community-based substance abuse studies among girls and women and in the development of the Division of Women and Family Services within the Boston Public Health Commission. She has been the principal investigator and manager of 30 public health research grants totaling over $28 million dollars. She has served on the editorial board of prominent scientific journals and on review and advisory committees to the National Institutes of Health, National Institute on Drug Abuse, US Department of Health and Human Services, Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, Substance Abuse and Mental Health Administration and the Institute of Medicine.

Her clinical and research programs are staffed by an interdisciplinary team comprised of approximately 30 researchers, clinicians, support staff and student fellows and faculty scholars at the intervention staff from diverse disciplines. In her role as an educator, researcher and administrator, she has played a critical role in training many researchers and clinicians from communities of color in substance abuse prevention and treatment both in the US and in Latin America. A unique feature of Dr. Amaro’s contributions has been her ability to transform research projects into community based services that have been sustained beyond the research funding years.

Her professional contributions have been recognized by numerous professional and government organizations. These awards include: an Honorary Doctoral Degree in Humane Letters from Simmons College; the American Psychological Association's Early Career Award for Contributions to Psychology in the Public Interest; the APA Award for Women's Health Research; the Association of Women in Psychology's Publication Award; the Mass. Public Health Association's Alfred Frechette Award for Contributions to Public Health; the Hispanic Mental Health Professional Association's Rafael Tavares Award for Research, the Boston Healthy Start Award for Contributions to Maternal and Child Health, Association of Medical Education and Research in Substance Abuse, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment, Whittier Street Community Health Center, Martha Elliot Community Health Center and the AIDS Action Committee. She was selected as a Distinguished Visiting Professor in Women's Health at Ben Gurion University in Israel where she lectured and consulted on substance abuse treatment.

Frederic C. Blow, Ph.D. is an Associate Professor and Research Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan and is Director of the National Serious Mental Illness Treatment Research and Evaluation Center (SMITREC) for the Department of Veterans Affairs, Ann Arbor, MI. His areas of research expertise include alcohol screening and diagnosis for older adults, serious mental illness and concurrent substance abuse, alcohol brief interventions in healthcare settings and mental health services research. Dr. Blow has been the principal investigator on numerous federal, state and foundation grants and has published extensively in the areas of substance abuse and alcoholism among the elderly, substance abuse screening/treatment and mental health. From 1996-98, Dr. Blow was Panel Chair for the CSAT (Center for Substance Abuse Treatment) TIP (Treatment Improvement Protocol) on Substance Abuse Among Older Adults. Additionally, he is the first Huss/Hazelden Research Chair for the Butler Center for Research at the Hazelden Center in Center City, Minnesota. Dr. Blow maintains an active role in both graduate and undergraduate teaching and the mentoring of pre- and post-doctoral students and junior faculty.

Susan P. Brown, Vice President and Director of Finance and Administration, and Secretary-Treasurer of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, was Director of Administration of the Washington office of the law firm of Dewey Ballantine for nine years prior to joining CASA. She has also been Director of Administration for the law firms of Califano, Ross & Heineman and Cohen & Uretz.

Meda Chesney-Lind, Ph.D. is Professor of Women’s Studies at the University of Hawaii at Manoa. She has served as Vice President of the American Society of Criminology and president of the Western Society of Criminology. Nationally recognized for her work on women and crime, her books include Girls, Delinquency and Juvenile Justice which was awarded the American Society of Criminology's Michael J. Hindelang Award for the "outstanding contribution to criminology, 1992" and The Female Offender: Girls, Women and Crime published in 1997 by Sage. Her most recent book, is an edited collection entitled Female Gangs in America has just been published by Lakeview press. In 2001, she received the Bruce Smith, Sr. Award “for outstanding contributions to Criminal Justice” by the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences, and she was named a fellow of the American Society of Criminology in 1996. She has also received the Distinguished Scholar Award from the Women and Crime Division of the American Society of Criminology, the Major Achievement Award from the Division of Critical Criminology, and the Herbert Block Award for service to the society and the profession from the American Society of Criminology. Finally, she has received the Donald Cressey Award from the National Council on Crime and Delinquency in 1997 for “her outstanding academic contribution to the field of criminology.” Locally, she has been awarded the University of Hawaii Board of Regent's Medal for "Excellence in Research."

Chesney-Lind is an outspoken advocate for girls and women, particularly those who find their way into the criminal justice system. Her work on the problem of sexism in the treatment of girls in the juvenile justice system was partially responsible for the recent national attention devoted to services to girls in that system. More recently, she has worked hard to call attention to the soaring rate of women's imprisonment and the need to vigorously seek alternatives to women's incarceration.

Ms. Davis is the Director for the Center for Policy Analysis and Training for Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation (PIRE).  This Center is devoted to translating the lessons of prevention science into practice, and receives major funding from the U. S. Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the U.S. Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the U.S. Navy.

In her preceding positions, she managed a Training and Technical Services contract for the OJJDP Enforcing Underage Drinking Laws program.  Were she was responsible for planning and managing the training and technical support to all 50 states (including District of Columbia, Puerto Rico and the Virgin Islands.)  She also served as Deputy Director for the American Medical Association’s “Reducing Underage Drinking Through Coalitions Program” and for 5 years was the Director of the Florence County Coalition for Alcohol and Other Drub Abuse Prevention.

Ms. Davis also has approximately 12 years of teaching experience at the graduate and undergraduate levels; extensive experience in developing, interpreting and implementing public policy around alcohol, tobacco, and drugs; and a keen sense of the role science must play in ATOD prevention programs and policies. She has served 4 years in leadership capacities for the APHA Alcohol and Tobacco Section (Governor and Section Council) and three years as one of only four staff directors on PIRE’s Board of Directors.  In 2003 ATOD section awarded her the Community-Based Leadership Award.

Don C. Des Jarlais, Ph.D. is Director of Research for the Baron Edmond de Rothschild Chemical Dependency Institute at Beth Israel Medical Center, a Research Fellow with the National Development and Research Institutes, Inc., and Professor of Epidemiology with the Department of Epidemiology and Population Health of Albert Einstein College of Medicine in New York. He began his research on AIDS in 1982.

As a leader in the fields of AIDS and intravenous drug use, Dr. Des Jarlais has published extensively on these topics. He serves as a consultant to various institutions, including the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Academy of Sciences and the World Health Organization. He is a former commissioner of the National Commission on Acquired Immune Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS).

Dr. Des Jarlais is currently working on research studies in 20 different countries, and has accumulated over three million frequent flier miles doing AIDS research.

Carlo C. DiClemente, Ph.D., is Professor and Chair, Department of Psychology, University of Maryland, Baltimore County. DiClemente is internationally recognized as co-creator (with James Prochaska, PhD) of the Transtheoretical Model of Change, a model that identifies stages of change and other factors that predict treatment outcomes and allows many more people to enter treatment programs at earlier stages of readiness.

The Transtheoretical Model recognizes that behavior change involves a process; previous theories saw change as equaling action, and only measured success if someone stopped smoking or abusing alcohol. The model has revolutionized substance abuse prevention and treatment and has been adopted around the world.

DiClemente is the author of more than 140 publications including, Addiction and Change: How Addictions Develop and Addicted People Recover. Having served as a consulting reviewer for many peer-reviewed journals, DiClemente is currently on the editorial boards of the International Journal of Health Psychology, Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, and Health Education Research. He has been principal or co-investigator on 25 grant-funded research projects including four current projects, which are funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Cancer Institute, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and National Institute of Child Health Development.

DiClemente was recently named Researcher of the Year by the Maryland Psychological Association and has received the American Psychological Association's Distinguished Contribution Award from Division 50. He was a contributor to the Surgeon General's 1990 Report on Smoking and Health, has chaired the Project Match Steering and Publication Committees, and recently chaired The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Smoke Free Families Project Publication Committee.

DiClemente received his AB degree Cum Laude in Philosophy and Social Sciences from St. Mary's University (Baltimore, MD), and an STB degree in Theology from Gregorian University in Rome, Italy. He received an MA in Personality and Social Psychology from the New School for Social Research (New York, NY), and his PhD in Clinical Psychology from the University of Rhode Island. He completed an APA-approved Clinical Psychology Internship and a Postdoctoral Research Fellowship at Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences (Houston). He received a diploma in Clinical Psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology.

Prior to joining the University of Maryland in 1995, DiClemente held appointments with the University of Texas MD Anderson Cancer Center, University of Texas Medical School, Texas Research Institute of Mental Sciences, and Human Resources Institute of Boston, among others. He began his career as Assistant Pastor with the Catholic Diocese of Wilmington, Delaware.

DiClemente is one of five individuals selected to receive The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Innovators Combating Substance Abuse award in 2002.

Laurie Drabble, Ph.D., MSW, MPH is an Assistant Professor at the San Jose State University College of Social Work and is an Affiliate Associate Scientist with the Alcohol Research Group (ARG) in Berkeley, California. She is former Executive Director of the California Women's Commission on Alcohol and Drug Dependencies and continues to work statewide and nationally as an organizational consultant providing a wide range of technical assistance and training services related to women's alcohol and drug issues, alcohol/drug prevention strategies, strategic planning, and non-profit management. A number of her current projects are focused on enhancing the capacity of multiple systems to address the needs of substance abusing women, including families involved in the child welfare system. For example, she is currently conducting a research project on “Pathways to Collaboration: Understanding the Role of Values and System-Related Factors that Contribute to the Adoption of Promising Practices between Child Welfare and Alcohol and Drug Systems” in ten California counties. She has presented workshops statewide and nationally on models for cross training between substance abuse and child welfare fields. Dr. Drabble has served on numerous boards and advisory groups. Some of her current volunteer activities include service on the California Women’s Health Survey Committee of the California Department of Health Services and the Women’s Constituent Committee of the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs.

Dr. Drabble also has extensive experience addressing alcohol, tobacco and other drug issues in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) communities. She is currently working with the Alcohol Research Group on research related to alcohol, tobacco, and other drug consumption among lesbian, gay and bisexual populations based on the 2000 National Alcohol Survey. Dr. Drabble is co-facilitator for the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT) national LGBT Workgroup and, over the last 15 years, has provided numerous trainings and conference presentations on culturally competent prevention and treatment services for LGBT communities. She has also authored several publications related to substance abuse prevention and treatment in LGBT communities. Her recent publications include a journal article on “progress and opportunities in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender health communications,” as well as chapters in edited books on “media strategies for advancing health in lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender communities” and “effective interventions and treatment for lesbians.” Laurie was co-coordinator for the first regional conference on “Prevention of Tobacco and Alcohol Problems in LGBT Communities” and has provided consultation in the development of several LGBT specific substance abuse prevention programs in California.

Dr. Drabble earned a doctorate degree in Social Welfare and a Masters in Public Health from the University of California at Berkeley. She also has a Masters in Social Work from California State University at Long Beach. Dr. Drabble has been recipient of a number of fellowships and awards in acknowledgement of her professional accomplishments and community work including a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) Training Fellowship with the Alcohol Research Group (1999-2001) and a University Fellowship for graduate study in Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley (1997-1998). She was awarded a Women’s Leadership Award from Prototypes Women’s Center (1996), the first Annual Anthony J. Puentes Advocacy Award from California Advocates for Pregnant Women (1995), and a Certificate of Appreciation from the Los Angeles City Attorney’s Office (1996).

Ruth W. Edwards, PhD, trained as a social psychologist, is a Senior Research Scientist and Director of the Tri-Ethnic Center for Prevention Research at Colorado State University. She has over two decades of experience in prevention research. Dr. Edwards is one of the authors of the Community Readiness Model as well as numerous publications and survey instruments such as The American Drug and Alcohol Survey™, a survey instrument widely used by communities for needs assessment and by researchers to develop theories and models for prevention of substance use. Her research interests focus primarily on prevention of social problems such as substance use and intimate partner violence as well as other forms of violence, particularly in rural and rural ethnic minority communities. Dr. Edwards has conducted both basic and applied research related to prevention and currently is serving as Principal Investigator on a multi-cultural project funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse investigating social and cultural factors related to inhalant use by children. She also serves as co-principal investigator on several projects addressing intimate partner violence, substance use and other public health issues.

Information to come.

Roberta Garson Leis, M.P.A., M.Ed., is the Program Director for Join Together where she is working with national groups that can have the most impact on the goals of Demand Treatment! She is also staff director of the National Policy Panel on Discrimination Against People with Alcohol and Drug Problems. Leis developed a peer-to peer technical assistance model, the Community Exchange and established a national technical assistance-working group with over 30 national organizations and federal agencies in Washington, D.C. in 1993, which continues today. She was instrumental in the establishment of the Boston Drug Court, the first Drug Court in New England. She serves on many advisory boards including CSAP's External Working Group, the Northeast CAPT (Center for Applied Prevention Technology), The MetroWest Community Health Care Foundation Distribution Committee and the New England Association of Drug Court Professionals. Prior to coming to Join Together, Ms. Leis served as Director of Human Resources for the Commonwealth of Massachusetts' Department of Environmental Management. She was also the first Executive Director of the Massachusetts Governor's Alliance Against Drugs.

Ms. Leis was Deputy Director of the Massachusetts field operations during the 1988 presidential campaign. She is also a founder and board member of Wayside Youth and Family Support Network, which serves over 6,000 troubled youth and their families in Massachusetts. In addition, she is a former local president of the League of Women Voters chapter in Framingham, MA and a former teacher in Newton, MA. She has an M.P.A. from Harvard University's John F. Kennedy School of Government, an M.Ed. from Tufts University and a B.A. from Vassar College. She is married with three grown children Peter, Caroline and Jenny.

Janice Ford Griffin, is the Deputy Director of JOIN TOGETHER, where she leads the Demand Treatment! Initiative, a nationwide movement to increase the demand for screening, intervention and quality treatment for substance abuse. Demand Treatment! supports strategic efforts to increase the demand for treatment across the nation with information and interactive discussion on the world wide web at www.jointogether.org and with intensive technical assistance to 29 communities that participate as Demand Treatment Partners. She has led the Join Together team on innovation and direct contact with communities, including supervision of the Robert Wood Johnson Fighting Back project - a grant-funded project to 14 cities to measurably reduce their most serious substance abuse problems.

Griffin formerly served as the Drug Policy Advisor to former Mayors Bob Lanier and Kathy Whitmire of Houston, which included directing the Houston Crackdown, a county-wide, public-private effort to develop solutions to problems associated with substance abuse. She also served as a regional coordinator for Texans' War on Drugs, a statewide drug prevention program, focusing on drug prevention and education programs for schools, civic and community organizations, and businesses.

Ms. Griffin has been active in many health-related organizations, including membership on the Steering Committee for the CSAT National Treatment Plan, the Advisory Committee on the Treatment of Alcoholism & Drug Addiction to the National Conference of State Legislatures, the External Work Group for the CSAP National Prevention Plan and the strategic planning committee for National Recovery Month. She has been a consultant to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation on childhood obesity and the Urban Health Initiative; and has served as a consultant to the World Health Organization's Committee on Primary Health Care for the European Region. She has been a member of the review committees for the CSAP Promising & Exemplary Programs, the US Department of Education Drug Free Schools Exemplary Programs, and has served on the boards of directors of several national and local organizations addressing substance abuse, and other health issues. Ms. Griffin has also served as a consultant to several federal agencies, and was a member of the USDHHS Healthy People 2000 mid-course review team. She has conducted workshops and presentations at numerous state and national conferences. Griffin is a graduate of Fisk University in Nashville, TN.

Director,
Innovators Awards Program

Vice President,
Research and Health Policy
Pinney Associates

Bethesda, Maryland

Jack E. Henningfield, Ph.D., is Professor, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine and Vice President for Research and Health Policy at Pinney Associates, which is a public health issues consulting group in Bethesda, Maryland. In December, 2003, Dr. Henningfield was appointed Director of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Innovators Awards Program at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine.

Most of his research and activities pertain to drug addiction. He has investigated addictive drugs including cocaine, morphine, marijuana, alcohol, as well as medications for treating addiction and other disorders. Research on tobacco and nicotine has been a major area of focus. He has published more than 300 journal articles and book chapters, several books and monographs, and contributed to numerous reports of the U.S. Surgeon General, the National Academy of Sciences, World Health Organizations, and other organizations. Dr. Henningfield is past President and a founding member of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, a charter fellow of the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, and Senior Advisor to the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Tobacco Etiology Research Network that is studying the science base for reducing tobacco use and harm in youth and young adults. He was selected for a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Award in 2000 and he used the award to support efforts to assess and disseminate the science foundation for tobacco control policy.

At the National Institute on Drug Abuse, and in professional organizations, Dr. Henningfield has worked to increase the public health relevance and excellence of addiction science by increasing the participation of underrepresented populations and by working closely with public health service organizations. He retired from his positions as Chief of the Clinical Pharmacology Branch and the Biology of Dependence and Abuse Liability Assessment Laboratory of the National Institute on Drug Abuse in 1996. He continues his research and public health efforts by working with non-governmental organizations on public health policy, academic institutions in their research and training efforts, and pharmaceutical companies in their medications development and evaluation efforts. Dr. Henningfield continues to serve various departments of the U.S. Federal Government, the World Health Organization, and other organizations that address issues of tobacco, drug addiction and health. A particular interest is in tobacco product design and engineering and how tobacco products could be made less deadly while being regulated and marketed so as not to undermine prevention and cessation efforts.

Information to come.

In 1990, Ivan Juzang founded MEE Productions Inc., a unique research and communications company with offices in Philadelphia, Baltimore, Washington D.C. and Los Angeles. Under Mr. Juzang’s leadership, MEE has remained committed to its founding principle — to use socially responsible entrepreneurship to reach and positively influence the lives of urban and ethnic audiences. Over the past decade, MEE has become an industry leader, assisting a variety of clients in achieving dramatic results with difficult-to-reach target populations, specifically urban audiences, African Americans and low-income urban youth (the hip-hop generation).

Mr. Juzang is experienced in developing and implementing campaigns that address health and social issues that impact inner cities. He conducts qualitative research that provides a view of the daily realities of urban living, and combines it with creative media production and communications services.

MEE has developed extremely effective intervention strategies dealing with issues such as substance abuse, HIV/AIDS, dating violence, physical activity and nutrition, teen sexuality, male involvement, and how to mobilize communities of color by understanding and utilizing urban youth lifestyle and culture. Several projects have been implemented in conjunction with local nonprofit organizations dedicated to improving the lives of youth, including The Blunt Truth Guides, a set of materials that help Latino and African American families and communities create a dialogue on issues related to preventing marijuana use by children and youth, and a multimedia campaign, “Life Is What You Make It” that educated HIV-positive people of color about the range of treatment options available to them.

Mr. Juzang's expertise has taken him internationally to both South Africa and Belize to help non-governmental partners promote the health of Black youth in these countries. MEE and Juzang have also provided technical assistance to hundreds of community-based, grassroots organizations who are on the “front lines,” providing services to the communities that need them most. Juzang encourages these CBOs to share their experiences and successes with each other through the national MEE Community Network.

MEE was honored in Inc. Magazine as one the of fastest growing inner-city companies in America and was listed in the Philadelphia Business Journal’s “Philly 100” for three consecutive years (2000-2002). The company is a certified minority supplier (SBA/8a) to the U.S. Government. MEE Films’ recently launched movie division in Los Angeles will use entertainment to disseminate pro-social messages to youth and young adult audiences. Its first feature film is slated for release later this year.

MEE first gained national prominence in 1992, with the release of its primary research study, “The MEE Report: Reaching the Hip-Hop Generation.” Funded by The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation, the report focused on the previously unexplored cultural and communications dynamics of urban teens. Mr. Juzang’s expertise as a producer is exemplified in MEE’s award–winning videos, including “L-Evated: The Blunt Truth” and “In Search of Love: Dating Violence Among Urban Youth.”

He received his MBA from The Wharton School of Business and his BS from Carnegie-Mellon University.

Karol L. Kumpfer, Ph.D., is one of the Nation’s leading experts in substance abuse prevention research, with 20 years’ experience in drug abuse prevention and treatment. She has recently served as the Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, within the Department of Health and Human Services. CSAP’s mission is to provide national leadership in the Federal effort to prevent alcohol, tobacco and illicit drug problems. As such, the Center fosters the development of comprehensive, culturally appropriate prevention policies and systems that are based on scientifically defensible principles and that target both individuals and the environments in which they live. CSAP is a program development center, a policy think tank, a knowledge generator and disseminator and a grant-making institution all in one agency.

As the Director of CSAP, Dr. Kumpfer responsibilities included for planning, developing, and executing the Center's programs, activities, budget, and work force. This responsibility includes maintaining the Center’s budget -- which includes $147 million in direct operations and oversight of approximately $320 million in prevention Block Grant funds -- and guaranteeing cost and programmatic accountability; furnishing overall leadership and guidance to assure effective accomplishment of CSAP’s programs, initiatives, and activities; providing dynamic direction and creativity in the development and advancement of national policies, goals, and programs for the prevention of alcohol, tobacco, and illicit drug problems; and implementing highly visible Executive Branch (including Presidential and Secretarial initiatives) priorities and programs.

A psychologist and author who promotes a substance abuse prevention model built on strengthening and empowering families, Dr. Kumpfer is currently employed at the University of Utah, where she serves as Associate Professor of Health Education. Her research and publications are in the area of family, school, and community interventions to prevent drug use in youth. She is also an expert in needs assessment and evaluation measurement and has published a book on measurement instruments, entitled Measurements in Prevention. Dr. Kumpfer also served as the President of the Society for Prevention Research and Chair of the Subcommittee on Effective Prevention Programs for the American Psychological Association’s Task Force on Prevention. Her expertise and background are ideally suited to fulfilling CSAP’s public health mission.

Throughout her distinguished career, Dr. Kumpfer has channeled her energies toward bridging the gap between science and practice. Specifically, Dr. Kumpfer was responsible for disseminating training and technical assistance materials to 34 parenting and family programs supported by the Strengthening America’s Families Initiative at the U.S. Department of Justice’s Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention. Dr. Kumpfer also directed two CSAP-funded longitudinal drug prevention projects that studies the positive effects of substance abuse prevention programs targeting children very early in life. One study focused on first graders and their families in high-risk rural schools in Utah; the other targeted 3- to 5-year-old preschoolers in San Francisco’s “Tenderloin” district and Chinatown.

“The bottom line is that prevention isn’t just about young people. It’s also about families,” says Dr. Kumpfer. “As CSAP’s Director, but most of all as a mother, I always work toward ensuring that families and communities have the full range of resources they need to prevent substance abuse.”

Dr. Kumpfer completed her BA at Colorado Women’s College and her Ph.D. in Psychology at the University of Utah. Her post-doctoral work was done at the University of Minnesota Institute for Child Development. She grew up in New Jersey and California and enjoys spending time with her husband and their 18-year-old daughter writing, reading, skiing, and hiking.

Michael Massing is a contributing editor of the Columbia Journalism Review and a frequent contributor to the New York Review of Books. Named a MacArthur Fellow in 1992, he has been reporting on the drug world for many years. His articles have appeared in the New York Times, the New Yorker, the Atlantic Monthly and many other publications.

Mark is the former Executive Director of Americans for Nonsmokers' Rights (ANR) and the American Nonsmokers' Rights Foundation (ANRF) in Berkeley, California. He remains President of those organizations. At ANR, Mark initiated and ran a grassroots campaign to ban smoking on commercial airline flights in the United States. He has also served as Legislative Director of the Coalition to Stop Gun Violence in Washington, DC.

Riley Regan has a life long personal and professional relationship with the field of alcoholism and drug abuse. In June of 2002 he gave up retirement to become the Director of the New Hampshire Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse Prevention and Recovery. During his seven years of retirement Mr. Regan was the Chairperson of the Kokomo, Indiana Mayor’s Task Force on Drug Abuse Prevention; was one of the ten 2001 mentors from across the country in the Robert Wood Johnson project “Developing Leadership in the Substance Abuse Field,” continued lecturing in the alcohol and drug conferences and institutes, served as an advisor to the State of Indiana’s addictions program and was an expert witness on the American Disabilities and Federal Fair Housing Acts in four federal court cases as a volunteer. Prior to his retirement Mr. Regan was the Executive Director of the New Jersey Governor’s Commission on Alcoholism and Drug Abuse. He was the founding director of the New Jersey Division of Alcoholism and was the Deputy State Director for the Maryland Alcoholism Control Administration. He was the Deputy Director of the National Center for Alcohol Education. He has taught at the Rutger’s Center of Alcohol Studies for a twenty-year period and has instructed at numerous colleges and universities on alcohol and drug studies.

Mr. Regan is a past president of the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors. He served five years as a member of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism’s National Advisory Council. He was the New Jersey Social Worker of the Year, the Star Ledger’s Jersian of the Year; the New Jersey Human Services Administrator of the Year and he has received numerous other recognitions. He was honored on five occasions by way of resolutions from the New Jersey General Assembly for his ongoing work. In 1985 Mr. Regan was one of five state employees in the nation honored by the National Governor’s Association.

Mr. Regan has a bachelor’s degree in psychology, a master’s degree in Community Organization from the University of Maryland School of Social Work; a master’s degree in Health Sciences from the John Hopkins University School of Public Health and completed doctoral course work in Alcoholism Programming from that school. Mr. Regan is a trained family therapist and has held addiction-counseling credentials. He was responsible for establishing the New Jersey program on compulsive gambling.

David L. Rosenbloom, Ph.D., is the Director of Join Together, a program of the Boston University School of Public Health, which helps communities fight substance abuse and gun violence. He is also Professor of Public Health at the Boston University School of Public Health, adjunct lecturer at Brandeis University where he teaches health care management and strategy. He is a member of the National Institute on Drug Abuse National Advisory Council, currently chairing a Special Committee to review the NIDA Clinical Trial Network program. Rosenbloom serves as a Director of the Spaulding Rehabilitation Hospital, Stop Handgun Violence and is Chairman of QuitNet.com Inc.

From 1975 to 1983, he was Commissioner of Health and Hospitals for the City of Boston. In that capacity he served as the city’s public health officer and CEO of the city's public delivery system, including Boston City Hospital, 22 neighborhood health centers, and the emergency medical system. From 1984 to 1988 he was Vice President, and then President, of the Health Data Institute, a private company that pioneered the clinical analysis of medical claims data and developed managed care tools and techniques used throughout the country today. In 1989, with Bob Master and Sharon Conners, he founded Community Medical Alliance, an HMO for people with catastrophic illness.

Mr. Rosenbloom grew up in Albany, New York. He received a B.A. from Colgate University in 1965 and a Ph.D. from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1970. He was Assistant Professor of Government at Hamilton College and Director of Hamilton's Washington Semester Program from 1970 to 1973. Mr. Rosenbloom is the author of numerous books and articles on political campaigns and finance, health care, and substance abuse. He is married to Alice Richmond. They have a daughter, Betsy.

Paul N. Samuels, JD, is Director and President of the Legal Action Center, New York, New York and an attorney with more than 20 years of landmark accomplishments in addiction public policy. The Center is the only law and policy organization in the United States that fights discrimination against people with histories of addiction, AIDS, and criminal records and advocates for sound public policies in these areas.

Samuels has been active on many committees and advisory panels and currently serves on the Advisory Council and Working Group on Research Priorities of the National Institute on Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse, and the Alliance Project's Administrative Committee. He was President and Public Policy Chair of the Association of Alcoholism and Substance Abuse Providers of New York State. His work has been recognized with many honors including AMERSA's Betty Ford Award and two awards from the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors.

Samuels has played a central role in establishing civil and privacy rights by orchestrating a successful campaign to include people in recovery within the protections of the Americans with Disabilities Act of 1990; protecting the rights of recovering individuals in the Fair Housing Act, the Personal Responsibility and Work Opportunity Reconciliation Act of 1996 and other legislation; and designing and leading the Center's nationwide program to help federal and state authorities and service providers successfully implement federal alcohol and drug confidentiality rules.

Samuels has also expanded drug and alcohol treatment, prevention and research. He and his staff have led campaigns instrumental in generating more than $1 billion in federal and state funding increases for treatment and prevention services since 1996. Samuels and the center played a key role in obtaining a Presidential Executive Order requiring equal insurance coverage for alcohol and drug treatment in the Federal Employee Health Benefits Program. He has also been part of initiatives to increase treatment and prevention in many social systems, including expanding programs in drug courts and elsewhere that divert appropriate addicted offenders from prison to treatment, supporting employee assistance programs, and increasing assessment and referral to treatment in the child welfare and welfare systems.

The author of a number of articles, Samuels is co-author of Confidentiality: A Guide to the Federal Laws and Regulations and A Legal Issues Handbook for School-Based Programs. He is editor of Washington Weekly Roundup.

Samuels completed his BA at Harvard College and his JD at the Columbia University School of Law, where he held a teaching appointment for five years. He worked part-time at the Legal Action Center while in law school and joined the Center as a staff attorney in 1979. He was Executive Vice President before appointment as Director and President in 1992. Samuels is a member of the New York State bar, as well as the bars of the United States District Court, Southern District of New York and Eastern District of New York.

Samuels is one of five individuals selected to receive The Robert Wood Johnson Foundation's Innovators Combating Substance Abuse award in 2002.

Dr. Ruth Sanchez-Way serves as the Vice President of Health and Community Initiatives, at Management Sciences for Development (MSD), a leading international consulting firm that promotes rule of law and human rights, strengthens civil society, and improves access to health and social services in developing societies. She has extensive experience in public health administration, substance abuse prevention, community empowerment, and youth development.

During Dr. Sanchez-Way’s Federal Government service of over 30 years, she held many executive and high-level positions. She concluded her federal career as a senior advisor in the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Center for faith-based and Community Initiatives, a program designed to make government more accessible to faith-based and community groups. She previously served as the Director of the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP), a component of the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), HHS. During her tenure, CSAP progressed forward from primarily funding demonstration projects to the identification and implementation of science-based programs. Dr. Sanchez-Way created a unifying vision that enhanced CSAPs leadership role and mission within the substance abuse prevention field. She created systems that expanded the capacity of states to collect and analyze community level data, assess the performance of service delivery and implement science-based substance abuse prevention programs. She promoted norms supportive of prevention through knowledge dissemination, information technology, and regional training and technical assistance.

Additionally, as SAMHSAs Associate Administrator for Minority Health Concerns, Dr. Sanchez-Way was responsible for monitoring and coordinating SAMHSA-wide prevention and treatment activities and programs that addressed the changing needs and concerns of racial/ethnic minority populations. Dr. Sanchez-Way’s high-level positions included: the Director of SAMHSA/CSAPs Division of State and Community Systems Development; Acting Director of the Office of Adolescent Pregnancy Programs; Associate Deputy Director of the Office of Equal Employment Opportunity, Public Health Service; and Special Assistant to the Director, National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Dr. Sanchez-Way serves on the Lions-Quest Programs Advisory Committee, a school-based K-12 positive youth development and skills building program. She is a mentor for the RWJF Developing Leadership in Reducing Substance Abuse program. She serves as a National Operational Volunteer for the Girl Scouts of the USA at national girl events such as GirlsSports and Leadership in Science and Technology, and adult staff and volunteer trainings on Contemporary Issues and the Studio 2B program. In the past she has served as an officer and member on several national boards, including the National Health Council; the National Organization on Adolescent Pregnancy, Parenting, and Prevention; and the National Council on Alcoholism and Drug Dependency. She is an officer of her sailing club and volunteers for her church.

Dr. Sanchez-Way received a Ph.D. in Public Administration from New York University, Wagner School; an M.S.W. from Fordham University; and a B.S. from St. John's University, New York. She is a member of the Academy of Certified Social Workers and a Certified Social Worker, Maryland. She also completed the HHS Senior Executive Service Candidate Development Program; the Management Development Program at Emory University, School of Business Administration; the Interagency Institute for Federal Health Care Executives at George Washington University; and the Public Health Service Primary Care Policy Fellowship.

Dr. Sanchez-Way is the recipient of numerous awards. She received the Senior Executive Service Presidential Meritorious Executive Rank Award for 1998, the first annual Excellence in Government Service Award given by the Mexican American Legal Defense and Educational Fund (2000), and most recently the HHS Secretary’s Award for Distinguished Service (2001). She is a Fulbright Senior Specialist (2002-2007), is listed in Who’s Who in Medicine and Healthcare (2002-2003) and International Health Professional of the Year 2003, International Biographical Centre, Cambridge, England.

Dr. Schuster is an internationally recognized researcher on the psychopharmacology of drugs of abuse. From 1986 - 1992 Dr. Schuster served as the Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA/NIH). In January, 1992 Dr. Schuster returned to his research career as a Senior Research Scientist at the Addiction Research Center of the NIDA. In January of 1995 Dr. Schuster was appointed as a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Neurosciences at Wayne State University School of Medicine and the Director of the Clinical Research Division on Substance Abuse. Prior to joining the NIDA in 1986, Dr. Schuster was the Director of the University of Chicago's Drug Abuse Research Center, and Professor of Psychiatry, Pharmacology and Behavioral Science. He has authored or co-authored over 200 scientific journal articles, as well as numerous book chapters and several books. He has served on the FDA Drug Abuse Advisory Committee and is also a member of the Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence of the World Health Organization. He currently serves on the FDA Advisory Panel on Anesthetics and Critical Care. Dr. Schuster is also the Director of the Great Lakes Regional Node of the NIDA/NIH Clinical Trials Network.

Dr. Schuster’s primary research interests include the development of medications and behavioral interventions for the treatment of tobacco, cocaine and heroin dependence; the laboratory evaluation of new medications for their abuse potential; the role of co-morbid psychiatric disorders in the etiology and maintenance of drug dependence; and the relationship between co-morbid psychiatric disorders and the nature and intensity of the cocaine withdrawal syndrome.

Faye S. Taxman, Ph.D. is the PI for the Coordinating Center for the NIDA-funded Criminal Justice National Drug Treatment Studies (CJ-DATS). CJDATS is focused on fidelity of interventions through a series of studies to examine implementation issues and to develop and test models of technology transfers.

She is also co-PI with Dr. James Byrne for the National Institute of Corrections on prison culture. Dr. Taxman has spearheaded a number of initiatives focused on efficacy of interventions, and has developed the Recidivism Reduction Laboratory to test ideas and concepts while Director of the Bureau of Governmental Research at the University of Maryland. Her articles on "unraveling what works in drug treatment for offenders" and "recidivism reduction" are frequently cited by practitioners as a guide to improving practice.

Her areas of expertise are corrections, drug treatment, organizational change, program development and evaluation, and sentencing. She received the University of Cincinnati award from the American Probation and Parole Association in 2002 for her contributions to the field. Dr. Taxman is also the author of a new manual for supervision staff, Tools of the Trade (interactive version), that assists organizations to translate research into practice.

Makani Themba-Nixon is executive director of The Praxis Project, a nonprofit organization helping communities use media and policy advocacy to advance health equity and justice. Current projects include Policy Advocacy on Tobacco and Health (PATH) -- a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Initiative to build tobacco control policy advocacy in communities of color, as well as numerous tools and resources that help people translate local problems into progressive, effective policy initiatives.

Makani was previously director of the Transnational Racial Justice Initiative (TRJI), an international project to build capacity among advocates to more effectively address structural racism and leverage tools and best practices from around the world. While at TRJI, she co-authored and edited a "shadow report" on institutional racism. Prior to that she directed the Grass Roots Innovative Policy Program (GRIPP) a national project to build capacity among local organizing groups to more effectively engage in media and policy advocacy to address institutional racism in welfare and public education. She was a staffer for the California State Legislature, served as media director for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference/Los Angeles, and worked five years for the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems, including three years as director of its Center for Media and Policy Analysis.

Makani has published numerous articles and case studies on race, media, policy advocacy and public health. She is author of Making Policy, Making Change, which examines media and policy advocacy for public health through case studies and practical information and co-author of Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention, a contributor to the volumes We the Media, State of the Race: Creating Our 21st Century, along with many other edited book projects. Her latest book (co-authored with Hunter Cutting) is Talking the Walk: Communications for Racial Justice.

Abraham Wandersman Ph.D. is a Professor of Psychology at the University of South Carolina-Columbia. He received his Ph.D. from Cornell University in the following areas of specialization: Social psychology, environmental psychology, and social organization and change. He was interim Co-Director of the Institute for Families in Society at the University of South Carolina.

Dr. Wandersman performs research and program evaluation on citizen participation in community organizations and coalitions and on interagency collaboration. He is a co-author of Prevention Plus III and a co-editor of Empowerment Evaluation: Knowledge and Tools for Self Assessment and Accountability and of many other books and articles. In 1998, he received the Myrdal Award for Evaluation Practice from the American Evaluation Association. In 2000, he was elected President of Division 27 of the American Psychological Association (Community Psychology), The Society for Community Research and Action. In 2001, he was first author on a paper on PIE (Planning, Implementation, Evaluation), which won a presidential prize from the American Evaluation Association for Mainstreaming Evaluation. In 2004, he co-authored the RAND publication of Getting To Outcomes-2004: Promoting Accountability Through Methods and Tools for Planning, Implementation and Evaluation.

Dr. Wandersman has worked on evaluations of coalitions for substance abuse prevention since 1990. He is currently engaged in the development of iGTO, an interactive web-based system that promotes results-based accountability in interventions.

Dr. Wandersman serves, or has served, on a number of advisory committees for prevention including: Technology Transfer Consortium of NIMH Office on AIDS, U.S. Conference of Mayors' Advisory Committee on HIV Community Prevention Planning, Technical Assistance Committee of the National Evaluation of CSAP Community Partnerships, Technical Support Group for the CSAP evaluation of Training and Technical Assistance, the Prevention Working Group of the Center for Mental Health Services, and Community Anti-Drug Coalitions of America (CADCA) Expert Advisory Committees.

Kenneth E. Warner is the Avedis Donabedian Distinguished University Professor of Public Health at the University of Michigan, where he has been on the faculty since 1972. He is also Director of the University’s Tobacco Research Network and Associate Director of the University’s Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Clinical Scholars Program. An economist, Dr. Warner earned his A.B. degree summa cum laude from Dartmouth College and M.Phil. and Ph.D. degrees from Yale University.

Presented in 200 professional publications, Dr. Warner’s research has focused on economic and policy aspects of disease prevention and health promotion, with a special emphasis on tobacco and health. Dr. Warner served as the World Bank’s representative to negotiations on the recently adopted global treaty on tobacco, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control. He also served as the Senior Scientific Editor of the 25th anniversary Surgeon General’s report on smoking and health, published in 1989. He is on the editorial boards of four professional journals and chairs the board of the international journal Tobacco Control. He consults with numerous governmental bodies, voluntary organizations, and businesses, and was a founding member of the Board of Directors of the American Legacy Foundation. Dr. Warner has testified before the U.S. Senate and the House of Representatives.

Dr. Warner has been cited twice by Delta Omega, the national public health honorary society, for “Outstanding Achievement in Public Health.” He was awarded the Surgeon General’s Medallion by Dr. C. Everett Koop in 1989. In 1990, he received the Leadership Award of the Alcohol, Tobacco, and Other Drugs Section of the American Public Health Association. In 1996, he was elected to membership in the Institute of Medicine of the National Academy of Sciences and was named to the first class of Fellows of the Association for Health Services Research. In 1997, he received the Excellence in Research Award from the UM School of Public Health. In 2002 he received the Richard and Barbara Hansen Leadership Award from the University of Iowa College of Public Health. In 2003, at the World Conference on Tobacco or Health in Helsinki, Finland, he was named one of the two recipients of the inaugural Outstanding Research Contribution award in the international Luther L. Terry Awards for Exemplary Leadership in Tobacco Control.

Cassandra Welch is the Director of National Advocacy for the American Lung Association. In this capacity, Cassandra directs the federal, state and international advocacy programs for the Association including providing technical assistance on tobacco control, asthma and clean air legislative and policy issues.

In the area of tobacco control, Cassandra leads the Association’s State Tobacco Control Technical Assistance Policy project and is the editor of the American Lung Association State of Tobacco Control report card as well as the annual State Legislated Actions on Tobacco Issues (SLATI) tobacco law compendium.

Cassandra led the Lung Association’s international efforts to support the development of the first ever tobacco control treaty, the Framework Convention on Tobacco Control and is currently working to build national and international support for its ratification and implementation. In addition, she is working on a Masters in International Public Policy at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University.

Diana Yazzie Devine has worked with Native American urban and tribal entities since 1972. She has been employed as the Executive Director of Native American Connections (NAC) for the past 25 years. NAC is a private non-profit, community-based Native American operated corporation that provides comprehensive behavioral health services, affordable housing, and low-income housing development targeting the Native American population on/off reservation. NAC provides innovative research-based therapeutic strategies that blend best practice counseling and substance abuse treatment methods with cultural and traditional healing ceremonies. NAC currently is the subcontractor on a 3-year CSAT TCE grant expanding and enhancing services to Native pregnant and parenting women in both residential and outpatient settings.

Ms. Devine has an MBA from Arizona State University and holds current state and international substance abuse certifications. She dedicates her time to numerous local, state and national committees including: Citizens Jail Oversight Committee (County Board of Supervisors appointment); Federal Home Loan Bank (San Francisco District) Affordable Housing Advisory Board; National Plan to Improve Substance Abuse Treatment (Dept. Health & Human Services CSAT) national panel member and a member of the Native American Cultural Competency National CSAT Advisory Group; St. Mary’s High School board past president; and the Maricopa County Juvenile Court Community Advisory Board past president.

Ms. Devine is currently working in collaboration with five major non-profit organizations that serve Native American people in the state of Arizona to plan, develop, and implement a Community Development Corporation that will address problems/issues impacting urban Native Americans in a more comprehensive approach with programs of greater scale and a broader range.

Dr. Young is Executive Director of the Center for Children and Family Futures, a California-based research and policy institute whose mission is to improve outcomes for children and families, particularly those affected by alcohol and other drugs.  She has worked extensively on projects related to alcohol and other drug issues in the welfare and child welfare systems. These projects include: development of a CSAT-funded technical assistance publication on substance abuse and child welfare; a report on policy issues and effectiveness of substance abuse treatment for welfare reform published by the National Association of State Alcohol and Drug Abuse Directors (NASADAD); development of a guidebook for state welfare and substance abuse directors on the substance abuse implications of welfare reform; and the development of a policymakers guidebook on substance abuse issues for the Child Welfare League of America titled Responding to Alcohol and Other Drug Problems in Child Welfare.  Over the past seven years, Dr. Young has worked as a consultant to over 30 states and regional offices on prevention and treatment issues affecting families involved with welfare and child welfare.

Dr. Young is Director of the CSAT/ACYF-funded National Center on Substance Abuse and Child Welfare.