We are proud to announce the Medical Student Summer Internships in Addiction Research, sponsored by our National Institutes of Health “Translational Training in Addiction” Institutional Research Training Grant (T32) award. The objectives of these internships are to introduce medical students to translational drug abuse research through an in-depth, hands-on training experience in a specific area of basic or clinical research, lectures, seminars, and completion of a project under the direction of a mentor. For more information or application details, contact information is included below.
Download the application for a summer internship.
For more information, please contact T32 Program Director Bill Fantegrossi, PhD at wefantegrossi@uams.edu or T32 Program Manager Lauren Ruthven, LCSW at Lruthven@uams.edu. The deadline for applications is March 15, 2025.
Mentors – NIDA T32 Translational Training in Addiction Research Summer 2025 Internship Program
Ashley Acheson, Ph.D.,
Family Health Patterns (FHP) Project (R01AA012207)
My lab uses multidisciplinary approaches to investigate how family history and early life experiences influences brain and behavioral development in childhood and early adulthood, with a focus on mechanisms contributing to risk for problem substance use. Current projects include the Family Health Patterns Project (R01AA012207), a long-running study aimed at characterizing behavioral and biological factors associated with family histories of alcohol and other substance use disorders and early life adversity exposure. We are also participating in the nationwide HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study (https://hbcdstudy.org), which is examining how children’s brains develops and are affected by exposure to substances and other environmental, social, and biological factors during pregnancy and after birth.
Jure Baloh, Ph.D., MHA
Implementation of interventions to support substance use disorder counselors
I’m an implementation scientist. My primary focus currently is on supervision in SUD specialty treatment settings (SUD facilities or programs). We are developing and piloting a supervision strategy (intervention) that we think has the potential to better support the workforce (counselors), improve their self-efficacy and reduce burnout, and in turn improve client outcomes. If effective, we think it would be useful as an implementation strategy for other things. I also do observational implementation research with national datasets, and collaborate with others on SUD and related implementation science projects.
William Fantegrossi, Ph.D.,
Behavioral pharmacology of emerging drugs of abuse
I am a behavioral pharmacologist, working with a variety of emerging drugs of abuse using animal models relevant to addiction. Using rats and mice, we assess abuse liability, tolerance, dependence, withdrawal, and various consequences of acute and chronic exposure to drugs. We also study potential therapeutic uses of some of these drugs.
Andrew James, Ph.D.,
Brain Imaging Research Center (BIRC)
My research uses functional neuroimaging to map brain-behavior relationships that encode individual variance in behavior and cognition, both in healthy normative subjects and patients with substance use disorders, epilepsy, multiple sclerosis, or depression. My team has recently developed the smartphone app OptiMAT to reduce relapse among patients receiving medication assisted treatment (MAT) for opioid use disorder. We are evaluating OptiMAT through a NIDA-funded R01 clinical trial with a longitudinal neuroimaging substudy to understand how the brain changes during recovery from opioid addiction.
Grover Paul Miller, Ph.D.,
Metabolism of emerging drugs of abuse
New psychoactive substances are a structurally and functionally diverse group of psychotropic molecules being sold worldwide as legal substitutes for controlled drugs, while incurring significant adverse health effects. Those outcomes depend on metabolic processes impacting exposure and activity of the parent drug and metabolites. Often through inter-disciplinary collaborative teams, my research focuses on assessing the mechanistic roles for metabolism, bioactivation, and clearance of molecules especially related to pharmacological and toxicological effects of cannabinoids alone and in combination with other drugs.
Mollee Smith, Ph.D.,
Addiction in pregnant and postpartum people involved in the criminal-legal system
My research is heavily focused on the intersection of addiction and criminal-legal system involvement, with specific emphasis on pregnant and postpartum populations. My recent work focuses on the 1) health histories and health-care services provided pregnant and postpartum women who are incarcerated, 2) adaptation and implementation of a parenting support program for newly postpartum mothers receiving medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD), and 3) implementation of prison-based prenatal support programs (e.g., childbirth education, lactation services, and mental health support groups).
Melissa Zielinski, Ph.D.,
Health and the Legal System (HEALS) Lab
My program of research aims to inform the development, implementation and dissemination of interventions for trauma-related sequelae, with a primary focus on co-occurring posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and addiction, among vulnerable and underserved populations such as people who are incarcerated or otherwise involved in the criminal legal system. My overall aim is to merge science, clinical practice, and policy to improve health outcomes of those impacted by incarceration; as such, community engaged research and practice; mixed methods; and implementation science methods and tools are core to my work. Ongoing projects with opportunities for summer student involvement include 1) a study focused on implementation of screening and therapy for people with co-occurring opioid use disorder and PTSD in jail, 2) a national study focused on group and self-help PTSD therapy for people with co-occurring substance use disorder(s) and PTSD in prisons, and 3) a project focused on building capacity for research on justice-involved women’s health in Arkansas. All projects include an emphasis on health interventions, implementation science, and community engaged research, and all are mixed methods (i.e., involve both qualitative and quantitative data).