EP 1,004B - Alcohol Related Deaths Are On The Rise

Dr. Aaron White is the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director and Acting Director of the Epidemiology and Biometry Branch at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). His areas of scientific expertise include the impact of alcohol and other drugs on brain function and behavior, alcohol-induced memory blackouts, epidemiology of alcohol and other drugs, and prevention strategies.

Dr. White received his PhD in biological psychology from Miami University in Ohio in 1999. His graduate research focused on the brain mechanisms underlying alcohol-induced memory blackouts. He completed a two-year post-doctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at Duke University Medical Center in 2001 and then served as a Research Assistant Professor in the department until 2008. His research there focused on the effects of alcohol on adolescent brain function and brain development, alcohol blackouts, adolescent substance abuse treatment and the development of high school and college alcohol prevention and education initiatives. Dr. White co-wrote the online alcohol prevention courses, AlcoholEdu for College and AlcoholEdu for High School, which have been completed by more than 10 million students to date. He joined NIAAA in 2008 and served as the Program Officer for underage and college drinking research in the Division of Epidemiology and Prevention Research until 2015. Since then, he has served as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director at NIAAA, Dr. George Koob. In this position, Dr. White advises the Director regarding a wide variety of scientific topic areas in alcohol and other drug research. He is also Acting Director of the Epidemiology and Biometry Branch at NIAAA. He frequently takes part in press interviews and delivers presentations on behalf of the Institute. He is an author on roughly 70 manuscripts and book chapters, as well as three books (two of which are on adolescent development) and has delivered hundreds of presentations on alcohol-related topics to diverse audiences around the globe.

Dr. Patricia A. Powell is the Deputy Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). As the largest funder of biomedical research on alcohol, NIAAA’s mission is to generate and disseminate fundamental knowledge about the effects of alcohol on health and well-being, and apply that knowledge to improve diagnosis, prevention, and treatment of alcohol-related problems, including alcohol use disorder, across the lifespan. In her current role, Dr. Powell works closely with the NIAAA Director to provide scientific leadership in the development, implementation, and management of NIAAA’s broad research portfolio.

Previously, Dr. Powell held the position of NIAAA Associate Director for Scientific Initiatives. In that role she oversaw a broad range of research activities, sought opportunities to jumpstart or expand projects that reflected the Director’s priorities, and identified opportunities for NIAAA to become more involved in existing activities and initiatives across NIH, the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services, and beyond.

In November 2015, Dr. Powell was appointed Acting Deputy Director. Prior to that, Dr. Powell was Chief of the NIAAA Science Policy Branch. She joined NIAAA as an American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) fellow.

At NIAAA, Dr. Powell has been actively involved in many aspects of underage drinking prevention. She served as one of two scientific editors for The Surgeon General’s Call to Action To Prevent and Reduce Underage Drinking, and she worked closely with the Leadership to Keep Children Alcohol Free Initiative, spearheaded by spouses of current and former Governors and focused on the prevention of drinking by children ages 9–15.

Dr. Powell has 20 years of research experience in developmental genetics and cellular and molecular biology. She received her Ph.D. in cellular and molecular biology from Washington University in St. Louis and, following that, did postdoctoral studies at the Salk Institute, the University of California at San Diego, and Washington University in St. Louis.