The Pravetoni group focuses on development and translation of medical interventions against substance use disorders (SUD) and other chemical and biological threats. Current efforts are: 1) vaccines, monoclonal antibodies (mAb), and small molecules to treat or prevent SUD, opioid use disorders (OUD) and overdose, 2) mechanisms and biomarkers underlying or predicting efficacy of immunotherapeutics and medications in pre-clinical models of SUD and OUD patients, 3) novel strategies to enhance vaccine or medication efficacy, including immunomodulators, small molecules, adjuvants, nanoparticles, polymers and other delivery platforms, 4) Vaccines, mAb, and clinical biomarkers against infectious diseases (e.g., Pseudomonas aeruginosa and novel coronavirus SARS-CoV-2), 5) biosensors for field detection or diagnosis.
Dr. Prater holds a doctorate in public health from the Ohio State University, with a focus in health services research, pragmatic intervention development and policy evaluation. Her work focuses on understanding the circumstances around firearm suicide among vulnerable populations and developing health systems interventions for suicide prevention through firearm safety. Using a public health lens, she works on tailoring interventions to meet the unique needs of vulnerable populations (e.g. dementia, terminal illness) at increased risk for suicidal thoughts and behaviors. She is currently funded by the National Institutes on Aging and the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention to produce clinical decision-making tools to help persons with early dementia, their care partners, and primary clinicians, to make safer plans for firearm storage.
Dr. Blayney’s research aims to understand the risks for and consequences of sexual victimization. More specifically, this work centers around how social contexts influence sexual victimization risk as well as variation in post-victimization recovery, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, alcohol use, and sexual risk behaviors.
I am a behavioral neuroscientist who earned my PhD from Rutgers University and completed a postdoc here, in the Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences Department at the University of Washington. My lab, located in the MIRECC at VA Puget Sound, aims to identify the neural mechanisms underlying substance use disorders and maladaptive decision making.
My primary focus is studying the neurobiological consequences and predictors of chronic fentanyl use. To accomplish this, I utilize cutting-edge in-vivo optical neuroscience tools (photometry, optogenetics, miniscopes) along with a newly developed oral-fentanyl self-administration model for rats and mice. I am also the lead developer for DeepSqueak, a popular software package for bioacoustics analysis that integrates machine-vision algorithms with an intuitive graphical interface to accelerate animal communication research.
Dr. Charles Engel is Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Washington School of Medicine, Core VA HSR Investigator in the Seattle Center for Innovation, Co-Director of the Center’s Advanced Fellowship on Health Systems Research, and Adjunct Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation. Engel’s work focuses on trauma-informed health systems and strategies for improving the quality of primary care for chronic mental and physical health conditions. His research has covered traumatic injury and post-trauma syndromes ranging from blast injury, mild traumatic brain injury and Gulf War syndrome to PTSD and depression. Engel is experienced at mixed qualitative and quantitative methods and has led large pragmatic randomized trials, program evaluations, and implementation science studies. He has authored or coauthored nearly 200 scholarly papers, including in the New England Journal of Medicine, JAMA, and the American Journal of Psychiatry. Funding for his work has come from the National Institutes of Health, Centers for Disease Control, Department of Veterans Affairs, Department of Defense and other organizations. Before joining UW Psychiatry and the AIMS Center in 2021, Dr. Engel was Senior Physician Policy Researcher at the RAND Corporation from 2013 to 2020 and Associate Chair (Research) at Uniformed Services University’s Department of Psychiatry from 2001-2013. Engel has served on the board of directors of the International Society for Traumatic Stress Studies, has testified twice before Congress, received a number of awards, and delivered invited lectures in over 10 countries. He received both his MD and MPH from the University of Washington.
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.
In two decades at UW, Dr. Hartzler’s principal focus has been on the dissemination and implementation of empirically-supported health services for persons with substance use disorders. To date, this includes local, regional, national, and international collaborations, encompassing federally-funded work with diverse community-based settings (i.e., addiction care, mental health, primary and specialty medical care, criminal justice, HIV care, schools, faith-based organizations), including those affiliated with the NIDA Clinical Trials Network. As director of the UW Center for Advancing Addiction Health Services (CAAHS), he oversees a broad portfolio, including: 1) the SAMHSA-funded Northwest Addiction Technology Transfer Center (Northwest ATTC), which provides universal, targeted, and intensive technical assistance to the addiction workforce in Alaska, Idaho, Oregon, and Washington 2) regional contribution to SAMHSA’s national Opioid Response Network (ORN), 3) a host of externally-sponsored implementation projects with single-state authorities as well as other organizations, and 4) contribution to NIH-funded and intramural health services research. In professional endeavors that span a science-to-service continuum, Dr. Hartzler seeks to promote adoption and implementation of useful treatment and recovery practices in community settings where they may benefit persons with substance use disorders.
