Prevention Research Branch

Contacts

Liz Robertson, Ph.D.
Branch Chief
(301) 443-6504

Dr. Robertson has been the Chief of the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at the National Institute on Drug Abuse since 1998. In that capacity she has broadened the focus of the prevention research portfolio to include a developmental perspective that ranges from early childhood through adulthood. In addition, prevention intervention contexts such as the family, media, and existing service delivery systems have been targeted for growth. High priority areas for continued portfolio development include the in integration of HIV prevention into standard prevention paradigms, basic trans-disciplinary prevention research, efficacy, effectiveness and large-scale systems trials, and prevention methodology. Prior to coming to NIDA, Liz led an intramural research program on rural substance abuse for the United States Department of Agriculture's Agricultural Research Service. She has published articles on the contributions of low social support and economic stress to family dysfunction and poor adolescent outcomes, the effects of social and biological transitions on adolescent problem behavior, substance abuse among rural children, adolescents, and adults, and the availability and utilization of drug abuse treatment services in rural areas.

Eve Reider, Ph.D.
Deputy Branch Chief
(301) 401-1719

Dr. Reider joined the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at NIDA in February 2000. Her program areas at NIDA include HIV prevention and selected and indicated interventions (e.g., at-risk populations, examples include children born to drug abusing parents or living in substance abusing environments, children with multiple problem behaviors, child welfare populations, juvenile justice populations, children with mental health problems who are at risk for drug abuse later in life, street youth, etc.). Eve received her doctoral degree in Child/Family Clinical Psychology at Michigan State University; she worked in the Department of Psychiatry at Kennedy Kreiger Institute and Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine prior to becoming a program official at NIDA.

Aria Crump, Sc.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 435-0881

Dr. Crump is a program official in the Prevention Research Branch of the Division of Epidemiology, Services, and Prevention Research. She received a Doctor of Science in Behavioral Sciences from the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health. She completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute for Child Health and Human Development where she participated in community and school-based prevention research. Dr. Crump worked as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Public and Community Health, University of Maryland at College Park, where she instructed students in health communications and minority health and conducted research as a part of a community-university health partnership. Her program areas at NIDA include substance use prevention in ethnic minority communities and preventing substance abuse and HIV during the transition to adulthood. She serves as the research training liaison for the Prevention Research Branch.

Augusto (Augie) Diana, Ph.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 443-1942

Dr. Diana joined the Prevention Research Branch in April of 2006. He is assuming the responsibilities of the SBIR/STTR Program for PRB, and will coordinate the SBIR/STTR for DESPR. Prior to joining NIDA, Augie worked as a Senior Public Health Analyst at the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention (CSAP) within the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) where he was responsible for the CSAPs national cross-site evaluation of the Strategic Prevention Framework State Incentive Grant (SPF SIG) project, and CSAP's major data/technology initiative, the Data Coordination and Consolidation Center (DCCC). Dr. Diana received his Ph.D. in Sociology from Northeastern University and his undergraduate degree from Fordham University.

Elizabeth Ginexi, Ph.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 402-1755

Dr. Ginexi joined the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at NIDA in July 2003. Her portfolio focuses on the translation of innovative technologies and discoveries from the basic biological, psychological and social sciences into the development and testing of preventive interventions. Prior to coming to NIDA, she worked at Westat, where she participated in the development and implementation of several large-scale drug abuse treatment and prevention evaluations funded by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA). Prior to working at Westat, Dr. Ginexi played a major role in data collection, data management, and analysis for several large longitudinal field studies involving mental health preventive interventions and services research. She received her doctoral degree in Applied Social Psychology from the George Washington University (GWU) and completed postdoctoral training under two Public Health Service Grant National Research Service Awards, one at Children's National Medical Center and the GWU Center for Family Research, and the other at the Center for Mental Health Policy at Vanderbilt University.

Richard A. Jenkins, Ph.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 443-1923

Dr. Jenkins joined the Prevention Research Branch at NIDA in 2006. Previously, he was a behavioral scientist in the Division of HIV/AIDS Prevention at CDC. Rich received his PhD in clinical psychology from Bowling Green State University and completed a postdoc at Indiana University-Bloomington. Prior to coming to NIDA, he was involved in a variety of domestic and international projects related to HIV prevention. These have included preparations for HIV vaccine trials, investigations of the social and behavioral epidemiology of HIV exposure, and the design and evaluation of HIV prevention interventions. Rich has interests in research methodology including non-probability sampling methods, assessment of sensitive behaviors, and the integration of qualitative and quantitative research methods. He also has been involved in research related to the implementation of federally-sponsored community planning mechanisms. Rich's international experience has focused on Asia, primarily Thailand. This has included operational studies associated with early stage HIV vaccine trials, community assessments of HIV risk among men who have sex with men (MSM), and development of the first systematic HIV prevention intervention with MSM.

Aleta Meyer, Ph.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 402-1725

Dr. Aleta Meyer joined the Prevention Research Branch at NIDA in April of 2007. Previously, she was Associate Professor of Psychology in the Clark-Hill Institute for Positive Youth Development at Virginia Commonwealth University. She received her doctoral training in Human Development and Family Studies at Penn State University, with a specialization in prevention research. During the 15 years she was at VCU, Dr. Meyer gained extensive experience in the successful design and implementation of federally funded clinical trials and served as Co-Director for VCU's CDC-funded Academic Center for Excellence in Youth Violence Prevention. The focus of her work has been to translate theory and empirical research from multiple disciplines into effective health promotion and prevention programs for early adolescents. For all of these projects, Dr. Meyer served as the lead in program development, training, implementation evaluation, collaboration with community partners, and dissemination. She has published research in the areas of action research, school-based health promotion (i.e., violence prevention, cancer prevention, and depression prevention), community-university engagement, and positive youth development. In addition to her research at VCU, Dr. Meyer taught numerous undergraduate sections of adolescent psychology and developed an innovative multi-disciplinary course on human biology and behavior in context.

Belinda Sims, Ph.D.
Health Scientist Administrator
(301) 402-1533

Dr. Sims joined the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at NIDA in June 2005. Her program areas are community-based multi-site prevention trials (e.g., trials to test the effectiveness of evidence-based drug abuse prevention interventions, including implementation and dissemination research), prevention interventions for early childhood (infancy through preadolescence; e.g., universal, selected or indicated interventions targeting child, parent, family, and/or community level risk factors for substance use), and economic analysis of prevention trials. Belinda received her doctoral degree in Developmental Psychology from Loyola University Chicago. She was the program official for the Child and Adolescent Preventive Intervention program at the National Institute of Mental Health prior to becoming a program official at NIDA, and a Faculty Research Associate in the Department of Mental Hygiene (now Mental Health) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health prior to joining NIH.

Jacqueline Lloyd, Ph.D., M.S.W.
(301) 443-8892

Dr. Jacqueline Lloyd joined the Prevention Research Branch (PRB) at NIDA in 2008. Her program areas at NIDA include screening and brief interventions, youth at risk for HIV/AIDS, environmental interventions, and peer interventions. She received a PhD in public health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and a Master in Social Work from the University of Connecticut School of Social Work. She completed a post doctoral fellowship with the Treatment Research Institute in conjunction with the University of Pennsylvania and the Center for Substance Abuse Treatment. Dr. Lloyd came to NIDA from Temple University, where she was an Assistant Professor in the School of Social Administration. Prior to joining the faculty at Temple, she was an Assistant Professor at the University of Maryland at Baltimore in the School of Social Work. Dr. Lloyd has taught courses in research methods and health and mental health human behavior theory. Her research activities have included evaluation of a community based youth prevention program, investigation of HIV risk behaviors and substance use among youth, and investigation of the role of family, peer and social network contextual factors on risk behaviors and treatment outcomes among youth and injecting drug users.