2019 Awardees
Please join me in congratulating our 2019 Div. 28 award winners. We had many excellent candidates nominated in all three categories, and I would like to thank all the nominees and those who nominated them for their participation this year. Div. 28 has an outstanding roster of early career and senior scientists doing excellent work. Now, for our winners:
MED Associates Brady-Schuster Award
Alan Budney, PhD
Professor in the Department of Psychiatry Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth
This award honors a mid-career or senior scientist (at least 15 years after doctoral degree) who conducts outstanding research underscoring the fundamental importance of behavioral science to psychopharmacology or substance abuse.
This year’s winner is Alan Budney, PhD. Budney is a professor in the Department of Psychiatry and the Center for Technology and Behavioral Health at the Geisel School of Medicine at Dartmouth. Budney has conducted extensive research on the development and evaluation of innovative behavioral treatments for Cannabis Use Disorders in adults and adolescents. He has also conducted human laboratory and survey studies characterizing cannabis use and withdrawal and has recently been most interested in using social media recruitment strategies to assess the impact of the changing legal landscape of cannabis.
Young Psychopharmacologist Award
Allison Kurti, PhD
Research Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Psychological Science
University of Vermont
This award honors a young scientist conducting original, meritorious work in psychopharmacology and encourages excellence in research at the interface between the disciplines of pharmacology and psychology.
This year’s winner is Allison Kurti, PhD. Kurti’s research focuses on multifaceted approaches to reducing substance use among vulnerable populations. Specifically, Kurti is interested in innovative methods of reducing tobacco use among reproductive-aged women that span the domains of tobacco control and tobacco regulatory science. Her research includes developing a smartphone-based smoking cessation treatment for pregnant women, examining effects of low nicotine content cigarettes among non-pregnant women of reproductive age and leveraging national datasets to study cross-sectional and longitudinal tobacco use patterns among both non-pregnant and pregnant women.
Outstanding Dissertation Award
Jacob Borodovksy, PhD
PhD in Health Policy and Clinical Practice (Epidemiology and Statistics focus) at the Dartmouth Geisel School of Medicine
Postdoctoral Fellow at the Health and Behavior Research Center
Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis
This award honors the best doctoral dissertation in psychopharmacology and substance abuse.
This year’s winner is Jacob Borodovsky, PhD. Borodovsky completed his PhD in health policy and clinical practice in 2018 at Dartmouth College and The Center for Technology and Behavioral Health. His graduate mentors were Lisa Marsch, PhD, Alan Budney, PhD, and Emily Scherer, PhD. The title of his dissertation is “Leveraging Social Media to Rapidly Assess the Effects of Cannabis Legalization.” The dissertation had two overarching aims: (1) understand how specific components of legal cannabis laws (e.g., permitting dispensaries versus home cultivation) were cross-sectionally associated with cannabis-related norms, risk perception, knowledge of cannabis products and risky behaviors (e.g., driving under the influence); and (2) evaluate the feasibility of using social media to conduct an online cannabis cohort study.
Borodovsky is currently conducting substance use epidemiology research as a postdoc under the mentorship of Richard Grucza, PhD, and Laura Bierut, PhD, at the Health and Behavior Research Center within the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis. Borodovsky finds the control and regulation of psychoactive substance use to be one of the most interesting aspects of our culture. He hopes to build a systematic line of impactful and policy-relevant epidemiological research that clarifies the causes and consequences of substance use in the population.
The award ceremony for the 2019 winners will be held at the 2019 APA convention in Chicago this August. Congratulations to all, and we look forward to your presentations.
This award honors a mid-career or senior scientist (at least 15 years after doctoral degree) who conducts outstanding research underscoring the fundamental importance of behavioral science to psychopharmacology or substance abuse.
This award honors a young scientist conducting original, meritorious work in psychopharmacology and encourages excellence in research at the interface between the disciplines of pharmacology and psychology. 
This year’s winner is Brent Kaplan, PhD. Kaplan completed his PhD in behavioral psychology in 2016 at the University of Kansas. The title of his dissertation is “The Effects of Happy Hour Drink Specials in the Alcohol Purchase Task.” Kaplan is currently a postdoctoral associate under the supervision of Mikhail Koffarnus, PhD, at the Addiction Recovery Research Center of the Virginia Tech Carilion Research Institute, led by Warren Bickel, PhD. His research focuses on investigating the abuse liability of reduced nicotine cigarettes and their interaction with other tobacco and nicotine products in the context of the Experimental Tobacco Marketplace. 
Olivia Borland is a student at the University of Kansas studying psychology and social welfare with the goal of obtaining her degrees in May 2019. She is a Ronald E. McNair Scholar, involved in the Addictions Psychology Lab of Bruce Liese, PhD, and works as a research assistant in the School of Social Welfare. She plans to do clinical work and conduct research in addictions as she pursues graduate school. 
Claire Crowley is a student at the University of Vermont studying human development and family studies, psychological science and linguistics. She is currently a project assistant on a research study examining Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorder, and she is a research assistant for the Vermont Center on Behavior and Health's FDA-funded trial examining the effects of reduced-nicotine content cigarettes on different vulnerable populations. Her goal is to pursue her doctoral degree in psychology with a focus on intimate partner violence and trauma. 
Sergej Grunevski is a student at the University of Kansas studying behavioral neuroscience with the goal of obtaining his degree in May 2019. He is the lab manager of the Addictions Lab of Bruce Liese, PhD. His honors thesis has a particular focus on correlates of craving in mobile phone use, and he plans to pursue graduate school in clinical psychology to continue addictions-related research.