Projects

People and Projects

IU's Responding to the Addictions Grand Challenge initiative involves a broad array of IU's world-class faculty. Through 30+ interdisciplinary projects, divided into five categories, our researchers are working to address the biological and psychological underpinnings of addiction; the family and social structures that contribute to addiction and facilitate or discourage recovery; and community-based strategies to improve resilience and policy and laws. Meet the researchers who are doing their part in the addictions crisis.

Data Science and Analysis

Peter Embi

Development of the Indiana Addictions Data Commons that will connect data gathered by separate organizations to provide a better understanding of how the addiction crisis is affecting Indiana.

Read about Embi's project

Bernice Pescosolido

Work with community and healthcare data to uncover patterns in how, when, and where the opioid epidemic is surging in Indiana to help more effectively predict and respond to the crisis.

Read about Pescosolido's project

Hank Green

Assess the overprescribing of opiates and the underprescribing of medication-assisted treatment to create interventions that encourage physicians to prescribe MAT and reduce overprescribing of opiates.

Read about Green's project

Titus Schleyer

Provide a platform for large-scale analysis and visualizations across data sources in the Indiana Addictions Data Commons to help the Responding to the Addictions Crisis initiative measure its impact.

Read about Schleyer's project

Jon Agley

Execute a statewide public health intervention aimed at increasing opioid addiction diagnosis; reducing opioid overdose mortality, HIV, and Hepatitis C; and strengthening prevention and treatment options for opioid users.

Read about Agley's project

Education, Training and Certification

Gerardo Maupomé

Launch of Project ECHO (Extension of Community Healthcare Outcomes) hubs for treatment of Hepatitis C and HIV, transgender health peer education, and pain management.

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Laura Romito

Increase and improve the training of healthcare professionals from IU, using a systems-based approach that addresses opioid substance abuse disorder and overdose through screening, prevention, diagnosis, and treatment.

Read about Romito's project

Ellen Vaughan

Develop/implement an educational program for an Addictions Counseling Certificate and an Addictions Counseling Master’s degree to increase the capacity and quality of addictions treatment in Indiana.

Read about Vaughan's project

Policy Analysis, Economics and Law

Nic Terry

Develop evidence-based law and policy interventions that improve substance use health outcomes and work with law and policy experts to find ways to improve the effectiveness of Indiana law and policy around the opioid crisis.

Read about Terry's project

Ross Silverman

Analyze the content, implementation and impact of local, state, and national laws and policies related to addiction; and evaluate the implementation of laws, policies and programs, and their impact.

Read about Silverman's project

Community and Workforce Development

Kosali Simon and Katy Borner

Develop ways to analyze and visualize data related to the opioid epidemic, to create a foundational platform for research, policy development and practical interventions.

Read about Simon and Borner's project

Robin Newhouse

Evaluate the current treatment capacity landscape across the state, recommending strategies that build workforce and treatment capacity and create an action network of nurses throughout Indiana.

Read about Newhouse's project

Basic, Applied and Translational Research

Matthew Aalsma

Determine best practices for implementing screening, intervention, and substance use disorder treatment services to incarcerated juveniles in counties across Indiana.

Read about Aalsma's project

Melissa Cyders

Reduce opioid use disorder overdose and incidence by developing a comprehensive guide to best practices for medication-assisted treatment in long-term opioid use disorder recovery.

Read about Cyders' project

Sarah Wiehe

Identify the dynamic factors and health services that produce improved health outcomes for opioid-addicted women and their infants with neonatal abstinence syndrome.

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Brian D'Onofrio

Demonstrate the effectiveness of implementing an innovative, computerized assessment tool to identify and predict substance use disorders in multiple community settings.

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Nicholas Manicke

Develop new technology that would simplify synthetic drug testing, allowing for more rapid and less expensive detection of synthetic drugs currently going undetected.

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Joshua Brown

Develop technology that would target specific regions of brain activity that involve addiction, without surgery and without affecting other areas of the brain.

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Debra Litzelman

Support and enable opiate-addicted mothers and fathers to engage in substance use and mental health treatment through the workforce development of community health workers.

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Olena Mazurenko

Identify the predictors of sustained opioid use, opioid abuse, and opioid overdose in order to reduce future substance abuse disorders in adolescents that experienced a traumatic injury.

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Zachary Adams

Adapt a technology-based, stepped-care intervention to facilitate treatment access for young people with problematic substance use and related comorbidities following traumatic injury.

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Bryan Yamamoto and Brady Atwood

Develop an animal model of opioid use disorder to evaluate effects of in-utero exposure to opioids and medication-assisted treatments on neonatal and adolescent physiology and behavior.

Read about Yamamoto and Atwood's project

Stephen Boehm

Identify unique risk factors in the development of alcohol, marijuana, and opioid addiction, researching how external and environmental conditions contribute to addictions disparities in Indiana and beyond.

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Ellen Vaughan

Test the efficacy of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy models for college students with substance use disorders and aim to expand treatment options available for students with substance use disorder.

Read about Vaughan's projects

Andrea Hohmann

Conduct preclinical studies required to validate and repurpose a former osteoarthritis drug clinical candidate as a novel analgesic strategy that suppresses opioid tolerance and physical dependence.

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Xin Li

Conduct a pilot study among patients seeking methadone maintenance treatment to investigate whether vitamin D supplementation could improve treatment retention and reduce opioid use.

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Brea Perry and Anne Krendl

Identify the nature and magnitude of addiction stigma in Indiana by surveying local county residents, including opioid users, to evaluate self-stigma and its social, economic, and health consequences in communities.

Read about Perry and Krendl's project

Alex Straiker

Provide a more effective antidote for opioid overdoses by developing and testing a better naloxone that works at a second known site of the opioid receptor.

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Tamika Zapolski

Analyze the effectiveness of a school-based therapy that has proven effective in clinical settings to reach a broader population of youth at risk for substance abuse.

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Hsien-Chang Lin

Develop evidence-based policy recommendations to improve the impact of state policies on the current opioid crisis.

Read about Lin's project

Grand-Challenge-sponsored faculty

Kit Elam, associate professor, applied health sciences, School of Public Health-Bloomington. Elam's work looks at how substance use emerges based on children's genetic predisposition and negative family and peer environments.
Istvan Katona, Naus Family Chair in Psychological and Brain Sciences. Katona's interests include signaling pathways and brain circuits involved in substance abuse, the endocannabinoid system, synaptic plasticity, and super-resolution imaging.
Maria Parker, assistant professor, epidemiology and biostatistics, School of Public Health-Bloomington. Parker's research interests lie in the field of drug use epidemiology, how drug use and drug use disorders disproportionately affect vulnerable populations, and opportunities for public health strategies.
Patrick Quinn, assistant professor, applied health sciences, School of Public Health-Bloomington. Quinn uses longitudinal data on individuals and families to test hypotheses regarding the causes and consequences of substance use.