Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Internal Medicine
Director, Center for Reducing Health Disparities
University of California, Davis

Sergio Aguilar-Gaxiola is Professor of Internal Medicine, School of Medicine, University of California, Davis. He is the Founding Director of the Center for Reducing Health Disparities at UC Davis Health System and the Director of Community Engagement of the UCD Clinical Translational Science Center (CTSC). He just completed a four-year term as a member of the National Advisory Mental Health Council (NAMHC), National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH). He is the Coordinator for Latin America and the Caribbean of the WHO World Mental Health (WMH) Consortium. His research includes cross-national comparative epidemiologic research on patterns and correlates of mental disorders, substance abuse and health conditions.

Hortensia Amaro, Ph.D.
Distinguished Professor
Director, Institute on Urban Health Research
Northeastern University

Ana Anders, L.I.C.S.W.
Office for Special Populations
National Institute on Drug Abuse

William Arroyo, M.D.
Department of Mental Health, County of Los Angeles

Simón Barquera , M.D., M.S., Ph.D.
Instituto Nacional de Salud Pública (National Institute of Public Health), Mexico

Dr. Barquera is a medical surgeon from the Universidad Autónoma Metropolitana in Mexico city with graduate MS and PhD degrees from the Friedman School of Nutrition Science and Policy at Tufts University in Boston MA. He has been a consultant for WHO, PAHO, IFPRI and the IAAE in the fields of nutrition, obesity and chronic diseases. He is co-author of diverse books and scientific papers such as the Third Report on the World Nutrition Situation of United Nations, the Mexican Nutrition Survey 1999 report and the Mexican Health Survey 2000 report. In 2003 he was a member of the team that received the Fred L. Soper award to the excellence in health literature for an article characterizing the obesity and nutrition transition situation in Mexico. Currently Dr. Barquera is president of the nutrition board of professors at the Mexican School of Public Health and head of the Diet and Chronic Diseases Department at the Nutrition and Health Research Center. He is member of the advisory board in chronic diseases and diet for the Ministry of health and has been recognized as National Investigator
by the Mexican National Council of Science and Technology.

Abraham Bautista, Ph.D.
Extramural Project Review Board
Executive Secretary, Advisory Council
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Before joining NIH, Dr. Abraham Bautista was a tenured Professor of Physiology at LSU-Health Sciences Center in New Orleans LA, where he performed research on the role of macrophages and alcohol on the pathogenesis of immunodeficiency in HIV/SIV AIDS, sepsis and liver injury. These studies were supported by several grants from NIAAA. In 2002, he joined Center for Scientific Review (CSR)/NIH as the Scientific Review Officer of the AIDS Immunology and Pathogenesis (AIP) and NeuroAIDS and End Organ Diseases (NAED) Study Sections. In 2006, he became the Chief of Extramural Project Review Branch and in 2008, Acting Director of the Office of Extramural Activities at NIAAA. Dr. Bautista was a member of the Editorial Board of Hepatology and the Board of Reviewing Editors of Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research and has also published numerous scientific articles in peer reviewed journals and books. Dr. Bautista received the degree of Ph.D. in Medicine and Immunology from the University of Aberdeen, Scotland UK, and completed his post-doctoral training at East Carolina University School of Medicine in Greenville NC. He is currently, the Director of the Office of Extramural Activities at NIAAA/NIH.

Lula Beatty, Ph.D.
Chief, Special Populations Office
Office of the Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse

Warren Bickel, Ph.D.
Professor and Wilbur D. Mills Chair of Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Prevention
Director, Center for Addiction Research
University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences

Raul Caetano, M.D., Ph.D.
Professor of Epidemiology, University of Texas School of Public Health
Dean, Allied Health Sciences School, University of Texas Southwestern Medical Center

Edward Castañeda , Ph.D.
Chair of the Psychology Department
University of Texas at El Paso

Ana Mari Cauce, Ph.D.
Dean, College of Arts and Sciences
University of Washington

Antonio Cepeda-Benito, Ph.D.
Professor of Psychology
Associate Dean of Faculties
Texas A&M University

Jorge Chabat, Ph.D.
Centro de Investigación y Docencia Económicas, A.C.

H. Westley Clark, M.D., J.D., M.P.H., CAS, FASAM
Director, Center for Substance Abuse Treatment (CSAT)

Deborah Dawson, Ph.D.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

Luis de Lecea, Ph.D.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry & Behavioral Science
Stanford School of Medicine

Jorge Delva, Ph.D.
Professor of Social Work
Faculty Associate, Institute for Social Research
University of Michigan

William Dressler, Ph.D.
Professor of Anthropology
The University of Alabama

William W. Dressler is Professor of Anthropology at The University of Alabama. His research interests focus on culture theory, research methods, and especially the relationship between culture and human biology. Dressler and colleagues have examined these factors in settings as diverse as urban Great Britain, the Southeast U.S., the West Indies, Mexico, and Brazil. His recent work emphasizes concepts and methods for examining the health effects of individual efforts to achieve culturally-defined goals and aspirations. His research has been funded by both the National Institutes of Health and the National Science Foundation.

Joseph Frascella, Ph.D.
National Institute on Drug Abuse

Mimi Ghim, Ph.D.
Office of Science Policy and Communications
National Institute on Drug Abuse

Bridget Grant, Ph.D.
National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism

José Guerrier, Ph.D.
Division of Biologic Basis of Disease BSPH-Behavioral and Social Science Approaches to Preventing HIV/AIDS Study Section
Center for Scientific Review

Steve Gust, Ph.D.
National Institute on Drug Abuse

Marya Hynes-Dowell, M.H.S.
Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission (CICAD)

Ms. Hynes Dowell obtained her MHS in Public Health from Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and Hygiene in 1996. Presently, she is a Drug Abuse Research Officer at the Inter-American Drug Abuse Control Commission's (CICAD) Observatory on Drugs (OID). CICAD is a technical agency within the Organization of American States, and the OID is the research unit which develops and promotes drug research across Latin America and the Caribbean. Ms Hynes Dowell is interested in drug abuse among adolescents in Latin America and the Caribbean and the social factors influencing their use. She is also interested in the social dynamics of drug use and crime.

Joe Martinez, Jr., Ph.D.
Professor of Neurobiology
University of Texas, San Antonio

Roger McIntyre, M.D., F.F.C.P.C.
Associate Professor of Psychiatry
University of Toronto
Head, Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit, University Health Network

Dr. Roger McIntyre is currently an Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Pharmacology at the University of Toronto and Head of the Mood Disorders Psychopharmacology Unit at the University Health Network, Toronto, Canada. Dr. McIntyre is involved in multiple research endeavours which primarily aim to characterize the association between mood disorders and medical comorbidity. This research involves elucidating metabolic adverse events associated with the use of psychotropic medications, the impact of medical comorbidity on the course of mood disorders, and the effect of glucose homeostasis on neurocognition.

Maristela Monteiro, M.D., Ph.D.
Regional Advisor on Alcohol and Substance Abuse
Pan American Health Organization

Dr. Maristela Monteiro is the senior advisor on tobacco control, alcohol and substance abuse at the Pan American Health Organization. Dr Monteiro joined PAHO in December 2003, after working for nearly ten years in Geneva at the World Health Organization, coordinating the area of alcohol and drug abuse. She is a medical doctor with a PhD in Psychopharmacology, from the Federal University of São Paulo, Brazil. Dr. Monteiro is the author of over 100 publications in peer reviewed journal articles and books. In her position, Dr Monteiro provides technical assistance to Ministries of Health of countries in the Americas on the development and implementation of policies, programs and research and collection of information on alcohol, tobacco and other substances.

J. Bryan Page, Ph.D.
Professor and Chair of Department of Anthropology
University of Miami

J. Bryan Page is Professor and Chair of the Department of Anthropology at the University of Miami. He has engaged in anthropological study of street-based drug use in many different settings during the last three decades. His studies have led to productive collaborations with diverse disciplines, including molecular biology, virology, immunology, ophthalmology, internal medicine, and psychiatry. Each of his studies begins by establishing a perspective on the use of drugs in the natural habitat of the user. From this level of understanding, he builds layers of perspectives and parameters to derive conclusions beyond the reach of a single discipline.

Hilda Pantín, Ph.D.
Clinical Associate Professor
University of Miami Miller School of Medicine

Hilda Pantin is a Clinical Associate Professor at the Center for Family Studies, Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences, University of Miami School of Medicine. She received her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the University of Miami. Dr. Pantin serves as the Director of the Prevention Division of the Center for Family Studies. She has published thirty journal articles and chapters in the areas of family-based prevention of adolescent problem behaviors, substance abuse, and HIV. One of these publications was awarded the American Association of Marriage and Family Therapy's "Outstanding Research Publication Award" for 2003.

José Szapocznik, Ph.D.
Chair of Department of Epidemiology and Public Health
Associate Dean for Community Development
University of Miami

For the last three decades, Dr. Szapocznik's primary research focus has been family therapy with drug abusing and problem behavior minority youth. His colleagues and he at the Center for Family Studies have conducted theoretical and empirical work testing some of the basic assumptions of family therapy, developing Brief Strategic Family Therapy^TM and a number of culturally-specific variations of this approach, extending strategic structural family therapy techniques to overcoming the problem of engaging hard-to-reach families, and investigating the underlying mechanisms of action in Brief Strategic Family Therapy^TM.

William Vega, Ph.D.
Professor
David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles

William A. Vega is Professor of Family Medicine, UCLA David Geffen Medical School, and an elected member of the Institute of Medicine, National Academies of Science. Dr. Vega has conducted community and clinical research projects on health, mental health, and substance abuse in various regions of the United States and Latin America. His specialty is comparative epidemiologic and clinical services research with adolescents and adults. Dr. Vega was cited in ISIHighlyCited.com Web of Science in 2006 in the top one-half of one percent of most highly cited researchers in the social science literature world-wide.

Nora Volkow, M.D.
Director, National Institute on Drug Abuse

Nora D. Volkow, M.D., became Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) at the National Institutes of Health in May 2003. NIDA supports most of the world's research on the health aspects of drug abuse and addiction.

Dr. Volkow's work has been instrumental in demonstrating that drug addiction is a disease of the human brain. As a research psychiatrist and scientist, Dr. Volkow pioneered the use of brain imaging to investigate the toxic effects of drugs and their addictive properties. Her studies have documented changes in the dopamine system affecting the actions of frontal brain regions involved with motivation, drive, and pleasure and the decline of brain dopamine function with age. She has also made important contributions to the neurobiology of obesity, ADHD, and the behavioral changes that occur with aging.

Liliane Windsor, Ph.D.
Assistant Professor
Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey

Dr. Windsor is an Assistant Professor at Rutgers: The State University of New Jersey, School of Social Work & Center of Alcohol Studies. Dr. Windsor is a NHSN Summer Training Research Institute Fellow and she currently serves as editor of El Faro, La Voz de la Red, the newsletter of NHSN. Her research has focused primarily on substance abuse and oppression with special emphasis on Latinos and Blacks in Texas, Brazil, and New York. She received her PhD in Social Work from The University of Texas at Austin with nearly 20 published articles and chapters. Currently Dr. Windsor is developing a community based culturally relevant substance abuse intervention for low income Latinos and African Americans in Newark, NJ.