HEAL Prevention Cooperative Webinar Series: Recruiting for Youth Substance Misuse Prevention

Tyra Pendergrass Boomer is Deputy Director for Programs & Partnerships at the play2PREVENT Lab, where they create videogames to teach adolescents about making good decisions around health behaviors. She received her Bachelor of Science in Biology from Howard University and her Masters of Environmental Management from Yale University. She has almost a decade of experience in building and maintaining community partnerships and running large scale randomized controlled trials. Tyra was a 2013 Connecticut Health Foundation Health Leader Fellow. She was also a 2018-2019 Advanced Health Science Research Fellow with the Yale School of Medicine.

Lily A. Hoerner is a Postgraduate Research Associate in the play2PPREVENT lab, where she is working on a large randomized controlled trial around the state of Connecticut with the research team. Lily graduated with her Bachelor’s in Psychological Sciences form the University of Connecticut and is currently in her Master’s program for Community Psychology at the University of New Haven.

Erin E. Bonar, Ph.D., is a licensed clinical psychologist and Associate Professor in the Addiction Center within the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Michigan (UM); she is also a member of the UM Injury Prevention Center. She studies ways to prevent and treat substance use disorders spanning developmental periods of adolescence, emerging adulthood and adulthood. Her work uses novel technologies including social media, telemedicine, and patient portal approaches. Her work often employs Motivational Interviewing and she is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers.

Ryan R. Singh, Ph.D., M.P.H., is a post-doctoral scientist at the Oregon Social Learning Center. Dr. Singh received his PhD in Public Health, with a focus on health promotion and health behavior, from Oregon State University. As an early-career scientist, Dr. Singh is a Co-Investigator, coordinating research activities, including recruitment and retention, for a NIDA HEAL-funded initiative aimed to evaluate the effectiveness and implementation of a substance use prevention program for young parents—PRE-FAIR (PI Lisa Saldana). Dr. Singh is committed to strengthening health outcomes for children and families through research geared towards improving the implementation of evidence-based interventions.

Kym Ahrens M.D., M.P.H., Associate Professor of Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine at Seattle Children’s Hospital and Research Institute and the University of Washington.

Dr. Ahrens has dedicated her clinical and research careers to investigating ways to prevent and mitigate negative health outcomes among youth exposed to early adversity, including and especially systems-involved youth. Her current studies include a NIDA HEAL-funded grant to prevent initiation and escalation of opioid use amongst incarcerated juveniles and young adults and a grant to use youth-engaged methods to develop an app supporting healthy relationships amongst transgender and gender-diverse youth. She has also done work developing and evaluating sexual and reproductive health trainings for youth in foster care, as well as foster and kinship caregivers.

Lissette Saavedra, Ph.D., is an expert Senior Research Psychologist with more than 20 years of experience in mental health and lifespan developmental psychology research. Currently she serves as the Principal Investigator of a National Institute of Justice grant focused on delivery of telemental health services for trauma-exposed victims of crime and the Principal Investigator of a NIH Translational Pilot grant that examines the feasibility and acceptability of a Screening and Referral to Prevention for Latinx Youth. She also acts as a Co-Investigator of the National Institute of Alcohol and Alcohol Abuse funded Project Harmony, a virtual clinical trial that integrates data from over 50 clinical trials to better understand treatment for comorbid posttraumatic stress disorder and alcohol/other drug use disorders. Dr. Saavedra has delivered and evaluated interventions in several modalities including clinic, community, and school-based and has actively worked with community-based organizations around recruitment and retention in both research and practice settings for over 20 years.

Barbara A. Oudekerk, Ph.D., Social Behavioral Scientist Administrator, Prevention Research Branch, National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health.

Dr. Oudekerk is the Lead Project Scientist for the HEAL Prevention Initiative, a portfolio of research on the prevention of opioid misuse and use disorder. She also serves as a Program Officer at NIDA overseeing research in community, justice, and social service settings. Prior to NIDA, Dr. Oudekerk was a social science statistician in the Victimization Statistics Unit at the Bureau of Justice Statistics (BJS), overseeing a range of national data collections including the National Census and Survey of Victim Service Providers and National Crime Victimization Survey. She has published on a range of topics including adolescent development and transition to adulthood, gender and aggression, peer and romantic relationships, bullying, probation and parole, hate crimes, and violence and victimization.