Div. 28 President

Mark Smith, PhD, is a professor in the department of psychology at Davidson College. Smith's primary line of research focuses on the behavioral effects of opioids and cocaine, and identifying the variables contributing to differences in drug sensitivity across individuals. Div. 28 has been his scientific home within APA for over a decade. Div. 28 has recognized his contributions to the field, first by awarding him with a young investigator travel award to attend his first APA convention in 2004 and recently by electing him to fellow status in 2011. Smith has served on the Executive Committee of Div. 28 almost continuously since 2007, serving as secretary (2007-11), liaison to the Science Directorate (2011-12) and program chair (2011-13). He is also currently serving a three-year term as member-at-large (2015-17). Smith will begin his term as APA Div. 28 president in January 2018.

Matthew W. Johnson, PhD, is an experimental psychologist who studies the behavioral mechanisms of addiction and the effects of psychoactive drugs in the human laboratory. In the field of behavioral economics, his research has applied microeconomic concepts to understand drug consumption, addiction and sexual risk decisions associated with certain drugs. He has conducted human studies with numerous drugs including cocaine, methamphetamine, tobacco/nicotine, caffeine, GHB, alcohol, triazolam and ramelteon, psilocybin, dextromethorpha, and salvinorin A. Div. 28 of APA has served as Johnson’s academic and professional home base for many years. Johnson has attended and presented research at the APA annual convention for 15 of the past 16 years. He was the 2010 convention program chair for Div. 28, served as member-at-large (2012 - 2014), represented the division at the 2013 APA Education Leadership Conference and recently served as the fellows chair for the division. Johnson is committed to advancing the field of psychology and its role in society, especially in the realm of psychopharmacology and substance abuse. He also supports the important role that APA should play in delineating ethical guidelines for our profession.

David Festinger, PhD, is a professor and the director of Substance Abuse Research and Education in the department of psychology at the Philadelphia College of Osteopathic Medicine. He is also a senior scientist at the Treatment Research Institute, Section on Law and Ethics Research and an adjunct professor of psychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, School of Medicine. He holds a PhD in clinical psychology and master’s degrees in counseling and clinical health psychology, and is a licensed clinical psychologist in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. Div. 28 has been his home division since joining APA more than two decades ago. He served as the awards chair from 2008 through 2010 and was awarded fellow status in the division in 2010. His National Institutes of Health-funded research has focused primarily on empirically isolating the active mechanisms of drug courts, developing empirically based dispositional procedures for offenders with substance use disorders, integrating disease prevention and healthcare into criminal justice programs for substance users, and bringing experimental research methods to bear on major ethical questions facing participants in substance abuse research.