Sex, Drugs & Science

Sarah Calabrese is an Assistant Professor of clinical psychology at The George Washington University. Her research focuses on sexual health promotion among racial and sexual minorities and other socially marginalized groups. Sarah chats with Valerie about all things PrEP (an HIV prevention medication), including: how many people are (or aren’t) using PrEP, (arguably) conservative guidelines around PrEP recommendations, and provider...

Dave Humes is a Board Member and the Public Policy Coordinator of aTAcK addiction, a naloxone trainer, and co-chair of the Changing Perceptions and Stigma Subcommittee of the Behavioral Health Consortium In Delaware. Dave shares his story of losing his son to an opioid overdose, and how that inspired him to advocate for policy change surrounding access to naloxone (an opioid overdose-reversal medication) in Delaware. Valerie and Ca...

Dr. Judy Tan is an Assistant Professor of Medicine in the Division of Prevention Science, Center for AIDS Prevention Studies (CAPS), at the University of California San Francisco. She is a behavioral and prevention scientist trained in social and health psychological theory, quantitative research methods, and intervention development. Judy chats with Valerie and Carly about her work with older people living with HIV, researching th...

Ben Levenson is the Chairman of The Levenson Foundation and founder of Origins Behavioral HealthCare. Ben chats with Valerie and Carly about harm reduction, or ways to “derisk” drug use for the millions of people who use drugs in the United States, and the gap between “the bench and the trench,” or between scientific findings and addiction treatment. Ben talks about international approaches to drug use and leaves Valerie and Carly ...

Dr. Brandon del Pozo is a postdoctoral researcher on the consequences of substance use and addiction at Rhode Island's Miriam Hospital and the Warren Alpert Medical School of Brown University. His interests include studying systems-level approaches to delivering substance use treatment services, overcoming the stigmas that obstruct evidence-based responses to the nation's opioid crisis, and confronting our growing stimula...

Dr. Allecia Reid is an Assistant Professor of Psychological and Brain Sciences at the University of Massachusetts Amherst. Allecia’s research aims to both understand the psychological, social, and environmental factors that relate to health behaviors and to improve the design of health promotion interventions. Allecia talks with Valerie and Carly about drinking on college campuses, including the roles of peer influence and mimicry ...

Dr. Morgan Philbin is an Assistant Professor of Sociomedical Sciences at the Mailman School of Public Health at Columbia University. Morgan’s work explores how social-structural factors impact health outcomes for vulnerable populations, particularly racial/ethnic and sexual minority youth. Morgan talks with Valerie and Carly about her research on cannabis policies, challenges in studying how policies impact health, and the role of ...

Liz Richards is Executive Director of the Delaware Cares Coalition for Paid Leave, which is a coalition of health, labor, faith, business, family and community organizations and advocates committed to passing Paid Family and Medical Leave in Delaware. Liz talks with Valerie and Carly about her work advocating for paid leave in Delaware, the research evidence supporting paid leave, and how scientists can support policy change surrou...

Dr. Ryan Watson is an Assistant Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Ryan’s research focuses on reducing health disparities among sexual and gender minority (SGM) youth and young adults. Ryan talks with Valerie and Carly about how terminology used by sexual and gender minority individuals changes over time (especially among youth), the role of minority stress in health, and how parent...

Dr. Laramie Smith is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Medicine, Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health at the University of California, San Diego. Valerie, Carly, and Laramie take a slow walk through Laramie’s early years, including her childhood plans to become a rodeo barrel rider and adversities she faced on her path to college. Laramie shares her experiences working for the Seattle King County HIV P...

Dr. Ingrid Katz is an Associate Director at the Harvard Global Health Institute, Associate Physician in the Department of Medicine at Brigham and Women's Hospital, Assistant Professor in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, and a research scientist at the Center for Global Health at Massachusetts General Hospital. Ingrid’s research focuses on the social determinants of health-seeking behavior among people living with HIV in Sou...

Dr. Samuel Friedman is a Research Professor and faculty member at the Center for Opioid Epidemiology and Policy in the Department of Population Health at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. He is also the Senior Theoretician and Associate Director of the Infectious Disease Epidemiology and Theory Core at the Center for Drug Use and HIV Research (CDUHR). In this bonus episode, Sam and Valerie discuss their role in activism as it relate...

Dr. Jelani Kerr is an Associate Professor of Health Promotion and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Louisville School of Public Health and Information Sciences. Jelani and Valerie talk about what getting tenure means for them and doing research in community settings during the COVID-19 pandemic. Jelani describes how he got interested in HIV research, connects drug policy to the HIV epidemic in African American communities, g...

Dr. Gabriel Culbert is an Assistant Professor in the College of Nursing at the University of Illinois Chicago and Dr. Agung Waluyo is the Directorate of Community Engagement & Empowerment at the Universitas Indonesia. Gabe and Agung describe how they met in Jakarta in 2003 and how their research partnership has developed since then. Agung reflects on what it was like to learn about drug use and the HIV epidemic after a sheltere...

Dr. Jasmine Abrams is an international behavioral research scientist, educator, and entrepreneur working toward health equity for women of African ancestry. She is an Assistant Professor of Community Health Sciences at Boston University School of Public Health, founder of SpiceXperience (a sex-positive woman owned company providing premium erotic education), and co-founder of Research Unlimited (a full service research assistance a...

Dr. Seth Kalichman is Professor of Social Psychology and Dr. Lisa Eaton is Professor of Human Development and Family Sciences at the University of Connecticut. Seth is also the Editor-in-Chief of the journal AIDS & Behavior and Lisa is an Associate Editor. Seth and Lisa tell the stories of how they became interested in HIV research, share best practices for collecting data at Pride, and think about how to apply lessons learned ...

Dr. Scott Hadland is a pediatrician and addiction specialist at Boston Medical Center and Boston University School of Medicine. Valerie and Carly talk with him about the importance of treating addiction during adolescence, medications for opioid use disorders, and associations between the pharmaceutical industry's opioid marketing and physicians' opioid prescribing. Valerie and Carly debate whether pharma has a hit out on...

Dr. Seven Tomek is a neuroscientist who recently earned her PhD at Arizona State University. She talks with Valerie and Carly about her research on opioids and social behavior, how she became interested in a region of the brain called the insula, and why she prefers rat participants to human participants. Seven shares her underdog story of how she became a neuroscientist, and Valerie reports on how Seven’s Instagram page expanded h...