National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives
A professional organization dedicated to translating scientific knowledge from the field of prevention science into effective and sustainable practices, systems and policies.
Virtual Congressional Briefing Series
Protecting Federal Leadership in Addiction Science and Public Health
The Addiction Science Defense Network (ASDN) is hosting a series of six congressional briefings on the critical importance of sustained federal support for addiction research, prevention, treatment, and recovery services. This briefing series will consist of six sessions, approximately 3-4 weeks apart.
Watch the Replays
Part I – Federal Response to Addiction in the U.S.
January 13, 2026 | Download Presentation Slides
Speakers covered the impact of addiction on public health, the indispensable roles of the CDC and SAMHSA in combating substance use disorders by supporting treatment and prevention services, and the economic and human consequences of underfunding for states and constituents.
Part II – Scientific Foundations for Our Response to Addiction
January 5, 2026 | Download Presentation Slides
Speakers highlighted ongoing and future scientific advancements in addiction research, showcased NIH’s role in developing new treatments and preventive interventions, and emphasized the importance of ongoing federal leadership and investment in addiction science and services.
Speakers & Overview: Past Sessions
Part I – Federal Response to Addiction in the U.S.
Remarks from Congressman
Representative Paul Tonko (D-NY), Chair of the Addiction Treatment and Recovery Caucus
Moderator: Diana Fishbein, PhD, Nova Scholar and Senior Scientist, FPG Child Development Institute, University of North Carolina and President, National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives
Overview: Costs of addiction, the larger context of general mental and physical health, why it’s a major public health problem, and the criticality of prevention and treatment services
Dr. Fishbein, Nova Scholar, is the Director of the National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives (NPSC), a senior scientist in the FPG Child Development Institute at UNC-Chapel Hill, and part-time research faculty at Penn State. Her expertise is in the fields of neuroscience, behavioral science, and prevention of substance abuse and related high risk behaviors, supported by the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other federal agencies and foundations, to determine impacts of deleterious social contextual factors (e.g., adverse childhood experiences - ACEs) on brain development and behavioral/mental health in children and adolescents. Dr. Fishbein’s research supports the premise that underlying neurobiological mechanisms interact with the quality of our psychosocial experiences and environmental contexts to alter trajectories either towards or away from risk behaviors, and how compensatory mechanisms can be strengthened through implementation of primary prevention strategies. A wide range of approaches are applied toward equipping local, state, and federal organizations and agencies with the tools to implement, sustain and scale evidence-based, trauma-informed practices and policies to prevent poor outcomes and promote health and wellbeing in children and families, thereby reducing SUD and related problems. She founded and directs the NPSC, a large professional organization dedicated to the transfer of knowledge from this science to public health policies. As such, Dr. Fishbein has been intensively involved at the policy level in advising legislators, state and federal agencies, national organizations and other entities regarding policies and practices shown to avert trajectories away from SUD.
Co-Moderator: Vanessa Morales, Doctoral Candidate, University of Miami, Maternal and Child Health Fellow, American Public Health Association, and Intern, National Prevention Science Coalition to Improve Lives
Vanessa Morales is a doctoral candidate in Prevention Science and Community Health at the University of Miami, graduating in May 2027. Her dissertation examines how adolescents’ social and environmental contexts cumulatively shape their risk for developing obesity using longitudinal and machine learning approaches. She is Treasurer of the Latino Caucus for Public Health (LCPH), a Maternal and Child Health Fellow with the American Public Health Association (APHA), and an intern with the National Prevention Science Coalition (NPSC). Vanessa is also a co-author on the Addiction Science Defense Network’s latest Impact Report, which examined the impact of the Trump Administration’s first nine months on addiction science and practice.
Paolo del Vecchio, Recovery Champion and former Director SAMHSA Office of Recovery
“From Personal Impact to Policy Solutions”
Overview: Personal journey of recovery from addictions and mental health conditions and lessons learned from a 30-year federal career with SAMHSA as a senior leader in fostering long term recovery.
Paolo del Vecchio, M.S.W, a person in long-term recovery from mental health and addictions, has been a leader in the peer recovery movement for 40 years. He recently completed a 30- year career at the US Department of Health and Human Services Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) where he served in multiple roles including the Director of the Center for Mental Health Services and the founding Director of the Office of Recovery. Paolo is now an independent advocate to advance recovery-oriented policies and practices on national and international levels.
Debra Houry, MD, MPH, Principal, DH Leadership and Strategy Solutions; former CDC Chief Medical Officer
“The Important Federal Role in Guiding State and Local Efforts to Combat Substance Misuse”
Overview: How CDC’s support to states and communities, surveillance systems, prevention programs, and rapid response initiatives are essential in reducing substance use, overdoses, and guiding public health action at state and local level.
Debra Houry, MD is a nationally recognized physician and public-health executive with nearly three decades of leadership spanning federal government, academia, nonprofit organizations, and frontline emergency medicine. Through her current LLC, she is a senior advisor to governors, states, and regional organizations on health policy and access, data modernization, preparedness, and incorporating technology into health systems. As the former Chief Medical Officer and Acting Principal Deputy Director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), she guided the agency’s scientific and programmatic direction, overseeing a $6B portfolio across nine National Centers and more than 10,000 staff. She led agency enterprise risk management efforts and co-chaired the working capital fund, prioritizing business services efficiencies to reduce costs. She represented CDC before the White House, Congress, and Fortune 100 CEOs—helping restore trust, align stakeholders, and navigate the agency through political transition and national crises. Previously, as Director of CDC’s National Center for Injury
Prevention and Control, she stood up the national Overdose Data to Action program, led changes to timely and accessible data as the drug overdose epidemic evolved, and brought the Drug Free Communities work to the agency.
Kevin Shield PhD, Senior Scientist, Institute for Mental Health Policy Research
“Protecting the Public’s Health through Evidence-Informed Policy”
Overview: Multidisciplinary public health surveillance research programs generate scientific data to inform individuals, clinicians, and policymakers on how to mitigate the public health harms caused by alcohol and other drugs.
Kevin Shield, PhD, is a Senior Scientist and Head of the Pan American Health Organization Collaborating Centre at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health. Dr. Shield leads monitoring efforts on alcohol and drug misuse and their associated harms in the Americas and globally. His research evaluates the effectiveness of public health policies, such as taxation, screening and brief interventions, and expanding access to pharmaceutical treatments for alcohol and drug use disorders, in reducing alcohol- and drug-related harms. By integrating biological and population-level data, he identifies the mechanisms through which substance use contributes to disease risk and examines whether the relationships between alcohol and drug use and a wide spectrum of diseases, including cancers, cardiovascular conditions, liver disease, infectious diseases, and mental health disorders, are causal. His work on the health impacts of alcohol use at the individual level has informed national guidelines in numerous countries, equipping the public with evidence-based information on how alcohol consumption affects health based on personal circumstances. By translating complex evidence into practical guidance, Dr. Shield helps governments strengthen health systems and safeguard communities from the consequences of substance use.
Jeremy Bray, PhD, Professor, University of North Carolina-Greensboro
“Economic and Public Health Benefits of Funding for States and Constituents”
Overview: The role of federal research investment in promoting economic growth, creating private sector jobs, and spurring technological innovation, and the risks posed to our nation’s health, safety, and prosperity if federal support for these agencies is diminished, including the burden to taxpayers from increased healthcare, crime, and other costs.
Jeremy Bray, PhD is the Forsyth Medical Center Distinguished Professor of Economics in the Bryan School of Business and Economics at UNC Greensboro. He conducts research on the economics of health behaviors, with a primary focus on the economic evaluation of behavioral health and workplace interventions. For nearly three decades he has conducted economic evaluations of screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment (SBIRT) programs and provided policy-relevant evidence supporting their ongoing development and adoption worldwide. He has also conducted economic evaluations of workplace programs for over 30 years, providing evidence to policymakers and employers that has improved the health and wellbeing of the American workforce. His work has had a profound impact on public health by supporting the resource allocation decisions of federal, state, local, and workplace policymakers, both nationally and internationally.
Part II – Scientific Foundations for Our Response to Addiction
Remarks from Congressman
Congressman Bill Foster is a scientist and businessman representing the 11th Congressional District of Illinois, a position he’s held since 2013. He also represented the 14th Congressional District of Illinois from 2008 to 2011. He is the only PhD physicist in Congress. He was a member of the team that discovered the top quark, the heaviest known form of matter.
Congressman Foster serves on the House Financial Services Committee and is the Ranking Member of the Subcommittee on Financial Institutions and Monetary Policy. Previously, he served on the House Science, Space, and Technology Committee where he fought for evidence-based policies and forward-thinking approaches to some of our country’s most pressing issues, including climate change and energy innovation. The Congressman continues to be a champion for sustained federal funding for scientific research.
Keynote: Vani Pariyadath, PhD (formerly with NIDA/NIH)
Overview: The impact of NIH, particularly NIDA and NIAAA, in advancing our understanding of addiction, developing new treatments and preventive interventions, and supporting research that addresses the biological, psychological, and social drivers of substance use disorders.
Vani Pariyadath, Ph.D., most recently served as Chief of the Behavioral and Cognitive Neuroscience Branch at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health (NIH). In that role, she led a multidisciplinary team overseeing a research grants portfolio, including large-scale initiatives such as the NIH HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study. She was also involved in multiple key programs such as the NIDA Racial Equity Initiative, the NIH BRAIN initiative, and the NIH Adolescent Brain and Cognitive Development Study. She brings deep experience in how federal research investments in neuroscience and behavior are designed, governed, and translated into real-world impact for people with substance use
disorders. Vani resigned from her role at NIDA in June 2025 and has written about the potential impact of recent changes in NIH priorities here and here.
Hedy Kober, PhD (Professor, Department of Psychology, University of California, Berkeley)
"Drug craving: From basic science to treatment development"
Overview: Clinical Perspective: Establishing biomarkers for phases within SUD using human imaging, cognitive, and psychological data, with applications to innovative treatments.
Dr. Hedy Kober is a Professor of Psychology at UC Berkeley, also appointed at the Helen Wills Neuroscience Institute. Until recently, she was Associate Professor of Psychiatry, Psychology, and Neuroscience at Yale University. Dr. Kober completed her BA, MA, MPhil, and PhD in Psychology at Columbia University, with a focus on Affective Neuroscience. At both Yale and Berkeley, her laboratory has focused on substance use disorders – the most prevalent, costly, and deadly psychiatric disorders. Dr. Kober’s research has been funded by numerous NIH grants, has been published in high-impact journals, and has been very well cited. She has also won numerous awards and fellowships, including a NIDA/NIAAA Early Career Investigator Award, an Early Career Investigator Award from College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), an Outstanding Mentor Award from the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, the Jacob P. Waltezky award from the Society for Neuroscience, and most recently, the Mid-Career Trajectory Award from the Society for Affective Science. Notably, Dr. Kober also completed a re-specialization in clinical psychology, and is a licensed clinical psychologist.
Hugh Garavan, PhD (Professor of Psychiatry and Professor of Psychology, University of Vermont)
"Addiction risk factors and consequences – insights from large longitudinal studies"
Overview: Dr. Garavan will discuss the purposes, findings to date, and implications for predicting and preventing substance use from the largest and longest neuroimaging study of adolescents in history: the NIDA-funded Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) study. He will also explain how large neuroimaging studies of adult users enable us to observe changes in the brain over time to gain insight into the progression of substance use disorders and their impact on cognitive and behavioral outcomes.
Hugh Garavan Ph.D is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Vermont. He received his PhD in Cognitive Psychology and Behavioral Neuroscience from Bowling Green State University in Ohio, completed postdoctoral fellowships at Cornell University and the Medical College of Wisconsin, and was an Associate Professor in Psychology at Trinity College Dublin prior to his move to Vermont in 2011. His research uses structural and functional neuroimaging to study cognitive control and reward processes with a particular focus on adolescent development, addiction and related mental health issues. He is a co-investigator on the IMAGEN project, a longitudinal neuroimaging-genetic study of over 2,000 teens in Europe. He is a site PI and Associate Director of both the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development study, a longitudinal neuroimaging-genetic study of over 11,000 children in the USA and the Healthy Brain Child Development study, a longitudinal study of over 7,000 pregnant people and their children from birth to age 10. He is PI on a T32 focused on complex systems methodologies for large neuroimaging datasets, is co-PI on two R25 grants that provide training on the ABCD and HBCD datasets to junior investigators and is co-founder of the ENIGMA-Addiction working group which is a global neuroimaging data pooling endeavor.
Martin Paulus, MD (Scientific Director and President, Laureate Institute for Brain Research in Tulsa Oklahoma; Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry, UC San Diego; Professor of Neuroscience, University of Tulsa; Professor of Psychiatry, University of Oklahoma Health Sciences, Tulsa Campus)
"More Than Just Neurons: The Surprising Role of the Immune System in Opioid Addiction"
Overview: Opioid use disorder is a widespread health crisis, and while most research focuses on brain neurons, we are investigating the role of astrocytes, which are crucial brain support cells linked to immune function and addiction behaviors. Using a novel technical approach, our group at the Laureate Institute for Brain Research have isolated tiny particles called extracellular vesicles that are released by these astrocytes into the bloodstream, effectively creating a non-invasive "window" to study brain biology. By comparing the proteins found inside these particles from patients with opioid use disorder versus healthy individuals, the study identified distinct differences suggesting that addiction involves increased inflammation and disrupted immune regulation in the brain. These findings highlight a biological link between the immune system and addiction, potentially opening the door for new treatments that target these specific neuroimmune mechanisms.
Martin P. Paulus, MD, is Scientific Director and President of the Laureate Institute for Brain Research (LIBR) and holds academic appointments including Adjunct Professor of Psychiatry at UC San Diego and Professor of Neuroscience at the University of Tulsa. His work integrates computational modeling, multimodal neuroimaging, and interoceptive science to identify neural mechanisms of anxiety, depression, and substance-use disorders and to develop predictive biomarkers supporting personalized psychiatry. He is Deputy Editor of JAMA Psychiatry and has authored more than 770 publications with a Google Scholar h-index of 132.
Henry Kranzler MD, Karl E. Rickels Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Studies of Addiction, University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine:
"Pharmacotherapy of Addiction: Where Do We Go From Here?"
Overview: The presentation will discuss a new generation of medications approved for treating alcohol, opioid, and tobacco use disorders which tend to be under-prescribed, and promising drugs in development.
Henry Kranzler, MD, is the Karl E. Rickels Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Center for Studies of Addiction at the University of Pennsylvania Perelman School of Medicine. His research focuses on the genetics, neuroimaging, and treatment of substance use disorders, including pharmacogenetics. His work has been supported by the NIH and VA since 1987 and has yielded more than 700 publications.