T-32 Primary Mentoring Faculty

Todd J. Arnedt, Ph.D.

Dr. Todd J. Arnedt conducts treatment research for sleep disorders in patients with mental health disorders, including substance use disorders and depression. He was a co-mentor for Dr. Deirdre Conroy (T-32 years: 2004-06), who worked on his NIAAA-funded grant to provide Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia in Patients with Alcohol Dependence. He was also a co-investigator on Dr. Kirk Brower’s R01, “Pharmacotherapy and Mechanisms of Sleep Disturbance in Alcohol Dependence.” He has received PI R01 funding from NIMH (2009-2012) to study augmentation of fluoxetine for depression with repeated partial sleep deprivation and received R34 PI funding (MPI with Mark Ilgen, PhD) from NIAAA for a project to develop and evaluate a sleep intervention for reducing cannabis use among adults using cannabis for sleep (2018-2021).

Erin E. Bonar, Ph.D.

Having completed this T-32 fellowship (2011-13), Dr. Erin Bonar mentored two fellows from the currently funded T-32, she will continue to participate in the mentorship of post-doctoral fellows in this training program. Dr. Bonar is a clear demonstration of the high quality of training in this program, and the outstanding dedication of the mentors and training faculty to accelerating the development of postdoctoral researchers in the field alcohol and other drug use disorders. She has extensive experience in research targeting substance use behaviors among adolescents and emerging adults. Dr. Bonar has also been involved in several studies evaluating psychological constructs (e.g., self-efficacy, perceptions of binge drinking) related to emerging adults’ alcohol use. She has extensive experience providing clinical supervision on brief motivational interviewing-based alcohol and drug use interventions delivered in healthcare settings and completed training from the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. Her fellowship training culminated in receiving a K23 career development award to evaluate the intersections of alcohol and other drug use and HIV-related sexual risk behaviors in emerging adults. 

Rebecca M.Cunningham, M.D.

Dr. Rebecca M. Cunningham is also a former T-32 postdoctoral fellow on this training grant from the 1990s. She examines the effectiveness of brief, computer-based screenings and interventions for alcohol and drug use in adolescents visiting the ED. She is also PI on a CDC National Center for Injury Prevention and Control that has a major component of research on the role of alcohol in injury, as well as Co-I on an NIH/Fogarty International Center Training Grant to develop the practice of Emergency Medicine in Ghana (2010-15). She is a standing member of the AA-3 Study Section. Dr. Cunningham has been instrumental in identifying emergency medicine physicians with an interest in alcohol and other drug research who qualify for this training grant.

Luke W. Hyde, Ph.D.

Dr. Luck Hyde's work focuses on elucidating the development of antisocial behavior and substance use using an array of tools including neuroimaging, molecular and behavior genetics, longitudinal studies with observational measures of parenting and neighborhoods, and sophisticated quantitative approaches. He is PI on an R01 (NICHD), UH3 (NIMH) and 2 foundation grants that fund the MTwiNS study – a cohort of 500 adolescent twin pairs followed since middle-childhood who are participating in neuroimaging and other assays twice across adolescence to identify the social (neighborhood, parenting) and physical (toxicants) risk factors that promote antisocial behavior via altered brain structure and function, as well as factors that promote resilience (via epigenetic mechanisms).

Dr. Hyde is also co-director and Co-I on two R01s (NIMH, NIMHD) that fund the Study of Adolescent Neural Development, a longitudinal study of 250 adolescents, that examines the impacts of poverty-related stressors on brain and behavioral development. Both of these studies provide ample data for trainees. Additionally, he is Co-I on the ABCD and ABCD-SD study UM sites in collaboration with other Addiction Center faculty (Heitzig, Hicks, Sripada). He is a member of several Editorial Boards, has sat on an NIH Study Section (PDRP), and has been the recipient of six early career awards across developmental and clinical psychology, neuroscience, and psychopathy professional organizations. Dr. Hyde has previously mentored multiple postdoctoral fellows on T32 training programs including one postdoc on this T-32. He was also trained on a T-32 grant and is thus well-positioned to mentor students via this mechanism.

Sean E. McCabe, MSW, Ph.D.

Dr. Sean Esteban McCabe is a faculty member on three NIH-funded T-32 training grants including “Multidisciplinary Alcoholism Research Training Program” (Blow, PI), “Postdoctoral Training in the Biology of Drug Abuse” (Traynor, PI), based in the Department of Pharmacology and “Complexity: Innovations in Promoting Health and Safety” (Titler, PI), based in the School of Nursing.

Dr. McCabe has active NIH-funding to study “Trajectories of Nonmedical Prescription Drug Misuse” (R01 DA031160; 2019-22), “Sexual Orientation, Discrimination, and Health Disparities in DSM-5 Alcohol Use Disorders” (R01 AA025684; 2018-2022), “E-Cigarette Use and Longitudinal Changes in Cigarette Smoking and Health” (R01 CA203809; 2016-2020), and “Health, Stress, and Tobacco Use Disparities among Sexual Minority Populations” (R01 CA212517; 2017-2021).

Dr. McCabe is also a co-investigator and faculty mentor on numerous NIH-funded studies focusing on alcohol and prescription medication misuse by adolescents and young adults. He has been PI of 12 NIH-funded grants and authored over 200 peer-reviewed publications on alcohol and other drug use and misuse. In the past 10 years, he has successfully mentored over 15 pre- and post-doctoral fellows and these collaborations have led to multiple NIH-funded projects and over 100 peer-reviewed publications with pre-doctoral and postdoctoral fellows.

Inbal (Billie) Nahum-Shani, Ph.D.

Dr. Inbal (Billie) Nahum-Shani is the founder and co-director of the Data Science for Dynamic Decision Making Lab (d3lab) at the UM, she has served as a mentor to over 20 undergraduate and graduate students from various departments at the UM, including Statistics, Psychiatry, and Psychology. She has mentored several post-doctoral students, including NIH research career development awardees (K01). Her multidisciplinary lab provides a unique and supportive environment for early career scholars to receive training in novel methodologies as they develop their independent research programs. Nahum-Shani’s research focuses on developing and employing behavioral theory and novel methodology to construct adaptive interventions, namely interventions that modify the type, timing, dose, or delivery mode of support in order to address the unique and changing needs of individuals. A more recent focus is on the use of mobile technologies to facilitate the timely delivery and adaptation of interventions, known as Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions (JITAIs). She has a particular interest in applying these novel methodological strategies to the study of alcohol and drugs. She provides leadership to several NIH funded projects focusing on optimizing adaptive interventions and JITAIs to address addictions, including smoking (U01CA229437; MPI: Nahum-Shani & Wetter) and substance use (R01DA039901; MPI: Nahum-Shani & Almirall). She is actively collaborating with a number of other mentoring faculty and mentored previous T-32 fellow Laura Coughlin, Ph.D.

Chandra Sripada, M.D., Ph.D.

Dr. Chandra Sripada has successfully served as a research advisor/supervisor to undergraduate, graduate, postdoctoral students for the past 10 years at the UM. He has served on 22 dissertation committees and mentored 10 post-graduate fellows. In addition to these direct one-on-one mentoring relationships, he was Associate Director of the Department of Psychiatry Residency Research Track from 2010 until 2012. He supervised typically two research residents per year (eight overall), facilitating the development of personalized career development plans, and leading a weekly seminar aimed at imparting critical “professionalization” skills.

As Director of the University of Michigan Neuroimaging Methods Core, he is charged with designing presentations and didactic materials on advanced neuroimaging methodology that is disseminated to 25 neuroimaging Principal Investigators and roughly 50-75 post-graduate and graduate student trainees. He led a productive and innovative research program investigating the neural basis of regulatory control deficits in ADHD and substance use disorders, especially alcoholism. His recent work deploys advanced neuroimaging methodology (e.g., functional connectomics and multivariate pattern classification), and offers excellent opportunities for junior investigators to learn the latest imaging methods. He is committed to providing outstanding mentorship to T32 Multidisciplinary Alcoholism Research Training Program trainees and mentored previous T-32 postdoctoral fellow Alexander Weigard, Ph.D.

Marc A. Zimmerman, Ph.D.

Dr. Marc Zimmerman's primary research has focused on adolescent health and resiliency, with particular attention to substance use and youth violence prevention. Dr. Zimmerman is the Director of the Prevention Research Center of Michigan (PRC) and the CDC funded Youth Violence Prevention Center. The mission of these Centers is to help create safe and healthy futures. The research is focused on community engaged translational and intervention and evaluation research, with a focus on decreasing community level violence outcomes. Much of his work is in Genesee County, which includes the City of Flint, Michigan, but he also works with foundations and communities across the U.S. The Centers’ research portfolio includes funding from NIH, CDC, NIJ, and national foundations.

Dr. Zimmerman’s published work includes over 250 peer-reviewed papers and book chapters, and two edited books, and covers topics including adolescent substance use and violence, sexual risk behavior, prosocial involvement, neighborhood effects on adolescent development, resiliency and prevention research. He has served as a mentor for several K01 awardees from a variety of disciplines including nursing, medicine, and public health. He has also mentored several Ph.D. students as advisor, thesis chair, and thesis committee member. Finally, Dr. Zimmerman will provide a will provide a valuable link to the School of Public Health, a potential source of recruitment for postdoctoral fellows.