Jonathan Bricker

My lab develops and tests acceptance-based therapies delivered in digital and telehealth platforms, with a focus on addressing health disparities. The most preventable causes of premature death and human suffering are cigarette smoking and obesity. To this end, my research team focuses on designing, developing, and testing AI-based chatbot, smartphone app-delivered, and telephone coach-delivered contextual behavioral interventions for smoking cessation and for weight loss. Research aims include main outcome comparisons, mediators, moderators, intervention engagement, and therapeutic process predictors of outcome. This research is currently supported by multiple NIH R01-level grants. Our lab’s latest grant focuses on testing a smartphone app for helping American Indians and Alaska Natives stop smoking commercial cigarettes.

See links for further information:

https://research.fredhutch.org/habit/en/habit-group-members.html

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonathan_Bricker

Larissa Gaias

Larissa Gaias, Ph.D., is an Acting Assistant Professor of School Mental Health and Implementation Science, located at the SMART Center within the University of Washington School of Medicine Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences. In her position, she primarily works with the SMART Center’s Training and Technical Assistance Core (TACore) to support schools, districts, community organizations, state agencies, and other partners in building accessible, effective, and equitable mental health services and systems for youth. She is passionate about building collaborative partnerships that apply knowledge and expertise from research, practice, policy, and lived experience into action. Her research centers on incorporating an equity-explicit lens into the development, implementation, and evaluation of school- and community-based social-emotional, behavioral, and mental health practices and policies. Larissa also has methodological expertise that spans quantitative, qualitative, mixed, and participatory approaches.

Connor McCabe

As a clinical and quantitative psychologist, my work bridges statistical practice and psychological theory to better identify for whom, under what conditions, and why substance-related health disparities are greatest across development. My substantive research seeks to understand how individual differences in stress and developing self-regulation shape substance use and disorder from adolescence through young adulthood, and how these associations explain substance use disparities among sexual and gender minoritized communities. Stemming from this work, my methodological research is centered on improving the analysis and interpretation of nonlinear effects spanning parametric and non-parametric methodologies.

Sarah Danzo

My research broadly aims to better understand the etiology of depression and risk behaviors such as suicide and substance use across development, and translate findings to inform prevention and intervention strategies for youth and families.  My work focuses on partnering with communities and primary care clinics to improve access to and use of effective mental health services.

My current projects include studies focused on adapting and evaluating suicide prevention intervention and implementation strategies for use with adolescents and their families in primary care and outpatient medical settings, including developing and adapting brief, just-in-time, and digital interventions to expand access to services.

In addition to research, I am also a clinical psychologist in the Mood and Anxiety Disorders Program and the Crisis Care Clinic at Seattle Children’s Hospital.

Tessa Frohe

I am a trained Behavioral Scientist with a PhD in Health & Human Performance. The main goal of my work is to reduce substance-related harms and improve quality of life for people experiencing problems related to their substance use. I work closely with community members who use drugs to inform my line of research and address key needs identified. My primary appointment is at the Harm Reduction Research and Treatment (HaRRT) Center within the UW School of Medicine and hold an Affiliate Faculty appointment within the School of Public Health.​ My aim is to adapt, refine, and disseminate harm reduction programs through digital health interventions to empower individuals and ameliorate substance-related harms.

Maya Magarati

My scholarship is dedicated to reducing behavioral health disparities in Indigenous, immigrant and refugee communities. I have 13 years of experience and expertise in community-based participatory research (CBPR) science and practice, mixed-methods multi-level research design, cultural adaptation and translation of evidenced based interventions and culture-based practices, survey and measurement development, and dissemination and translation of findings. I am interested in examining culture-centered, land-based healing practices and mechanisms in addressing substance use, sexual health, and climate change impact.

Katherine Walukevich-Dienst

Dr. Walukevich-Dienst (hear my name) is a licensed clinical psychologist and an Assistant Professor at the University of Washington.

Her research is focused on identifying psychosocial and contextual factors associated with alcohol and cannabis misuse and co-use among young adults, including social influences (e.g., romantic partners, use partnerships), affect management motives, co-occurring mental health concerns, and high-risk substance use events and contexts.

Dr. Walukevich-Dienst aims to leverage this information to develop and test innovative, technology-informed prevention and intervention efforts to  disseminate in real world settings.

She also provides psychotherapy to patients at the University of Washington’s Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic and provides supervision and training to psychology graduate students and psychiatry residents in Cognitive Behavioral Therapy.

Link to Dr. Walukevich-Dienst’s CV.

Mary Hatch

Dr. Hatch is an Associate Professor at the Addictions, Drug & Alcohol Institute (ADAI), Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, UW School of Medicine. Her research interests are in the development and testing of behavioral and pharmacologic interventions for substance use disorders and HIV prevention. In particular, her work has focused on the intersection of substance use and HIV-related sex and drug risk behaviors from both the consumer and workforce perspectives, and on implementation factors that affect uptake of interventions. She has held multiple and varied roles in research projects since 1994, and has long-standing experience developing, implementing, and overseeing large-scale multi-site clinical trials with community treatment providers. In addition to her work at the University of Washington, Dr. Hatch is a licensed clinical psychologist at UWMC Outpatient Psychiatry Clinic. Her clinical work specializes in the treatment of drug and alcohol addictions and co-occurring depression, anxiety and trauma.

Beatriz Carlini

I am a Research Associate Professor at the Psychiatry Department,  Addiction, Drug & Alcohol Institute where I direct the Cannabis Education and Research Program, a team (CERP) that systematically interacts with state and county agencies and community coalitions, with the purpose of supporting the adoption of evidence-base policies and interventions. I have published extensively in peer-reviewed journals, secured research funds both as Principal Investigator and Co-Investigator, and have collaborated with colleagues from various U.S. universities and abroad. Besides cannabis, I have interest and research experience in tobacco control.

A little bit about my trajectory: I obtained my PhD in Social Psychology in my home country, Brazil. As a faculty in the University of Sao Paulo Preventive Medicine Department, my professional life was dedicated to research and service disparate populations, such as street kids and substance-using youth. As an academic of a developing nation, I had the honor to collaborate internationally and serve in various World Health Organization working groups and committees.

After moving to the United States in 2000, I obtained a Master of Public Health at UW, with an emphasis in Social and Behavioral Sciences. This second degree provided me with the skills and the contextual perspective to successfully transition my professional focus from health care disparities in developing nations to the inequities experienced by historically marginalized communities living in the richest and most powerful country on Earth, the U.S. As a dual citizen, I consider inequity, racism, discrimination and stigma as important determinants of addiction and substance use in an increased globalized world.

I prefer the pronouns she, her, hers.

Katarina Guttmannova

I am a developmental psychologist with additional training and expertise in quantitative methods. I am an associate professor in the UW Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, a core member of the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behaviors (CSHRB), faculty affiliate of the Center for Studies in Demography and Ecology (CSDE), and adjunct faculty at the UW School of Social Work. My main collaborations at UW involve colleagues from CSHRB but I also maintain strong research collaborations with my colleagues from the Social Development Research Group (SDRG), School of Social Work, and other departments. In addition to research, I occasionally teach graduate-level classes on research methods and evaluation in social welfare (SOCW505, SOCW506, SOCW507) and research and theory (SOCWL599) at the School of Social Work. I am also actively involved in mentoring graduate students and postdoctoral fellows.