Kasey Claborn received her Ph.D. in clinical psychology in 2013 from Oklahoma State University and completed her internship at the University of Florida Health Sciences Center. She completed her postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University’s Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies, where she crossed-trained in HIV and addictive behaviors at the Alcohol Research Center on HIV. Claborn’s research interests broadly focus on the syndemics of addiction and infectious disease. Her research seeks to improve clinical outcomes of vulnerable and at-risk patients through improving care coordination and communication at the systems level and promoting health behavior change at the patient level. She is principal investigator of several NIH-funded studies investigating ways to increase linkage to HIV/PrEP care and adherence to HIV treatment among people who use drugs. Her work focuses on identifying gaps across the health care system to improve access to HIV/PrEP care and substance use treatment among vulnerable populations. Claborn also has expertise in the development of digital health innovations. She works closely with software development teams to develop innovative technology solutions to improve clinic work flows and patient outcomes. She has developed mobile solutions to improve HIV medication adherence among patients, care coordination among treatment providers, and to reduce opioid overdose risk.
Adriana Espinosa completed her Ph.D. in Economics from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to joining academia in 2014, Dr. Espinosa worked as market research analyst in the private sector, and more recently as Deputy Director of the Master’s in Public Administration program at the City College of New York. Dr. Espinosa currently teaches statistics and research methods to graduate, both Master’s and Doctoral, students, in the psychology department at City College, and she has provided international lectures on statistical methods to Ph.D. students and junior faculty. Her research seeks to understand the strengths and weaknesses of marginalized populations confronted with cultural and socio-economic challenges, and apply such knowledge to reduce disparities in health and adaptation.
Dr. Lesia Ruglass received her B.A. in Psychology from New York University, her M.A. in Psychology from Boston University, and her Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from the New School for Social Research in New York City. She completed her internship and post-doctoral fellowship in Clinical Psychology at the St. Luke’s-Roosevelt Hospital Center. She then worked for several years as an Associate Research Scientist at the Social Intervention Group at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Dr. Ruglass is now an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychology at the City College of New York, CUNY and a Research Scientist in the Trauma and Addictions Project (TAP) and Research on Addictive Disorders (ROAD) labs. She has received awards and grants from the National Institutes on Health and the City College City SEEDS program. She has published several peer-reviewed articles and presented her work nationally and internationally. She is the co-author of a book, Psychology of Trauma 101 (forthcoming from Springer Publishing). Dr. Ruglass also maintains a private practice based in New York City and has specialized training in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy, Dialectical Behavior Therapy, and Psychodynamic Psychotherapy. She is a member of the American Psychological Association [APA, Divisions 50 (Addictions) and 56 (Trauma Psychology)] and the New York State Psychological Association. She is currently Member-at-Large and Co-Chair of the Diversity and Multicultural Committee for Division 56 of APA.
Elizabeth (Beth) Lippard, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at Dell Medical School.
Lippard graduated magna cum laude from North Carolina State University with a B.S. in microbiology, a B.A. in chemistry, and minor in genetics in 2003. She obtained her Ph.D. in neurobiology in 2012 from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Prior to joining the Dell Medical School team, she completed two postdoctoral fellowships in psychiatry and radiology and biomedical imaging at Yale University.
Lippard’s research interests focus on the intersection of behavioral and developmental neuroscience. She studies brain-behavior relationships across development, in clinical and typically developing populations, and how genes and environmental stress influence these processes. Specifically, a focus of her research has been on understanding neural systems related to risk, onset and early disease progression in affective and alcohol use disorders. She has a unique skill set, having cross-trained in basic science models, wet lab methodologies and human clinical research. Her lab uses a combination of methods including multimodal magnetic resonance imaging (MRI), genetic techniques and behavioral phenotyping. She takes a developmental approach, using longitudinal translational neuroscience paradigms, in both human and rodent models, to identify genes, neural circuitry, environmental and behavioral predictors of problem behaviors and mechanisms by which predictors translate into adult phenotypes (e.g. suicide and addiction) within and across psychiatric disorders.