Updates

This fall, Frances Storgion joined the ASPIRE Lab as a first-year graduate student and Graduate Research Assistant (GRA) in the Clinical Psychology program. Frances recently earned her B.A. in Criminology and Psychology from Butler University. Welcome to the ASPIRE Lab, Frances—excited to see your contributions ahead! 

Brandon and Dr. Winograd published a Perspective article discussed how the perceived "enabling" capabilities of community naloxone distribution and other "safety net" strategies can be characterized and empirically evaluated using population-level moral hazard theory or individual-level risk-compensation theory. This is Brandon’s first first-author paper with Dr. Winograd, and was published in the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs (JSAD)! 

• Schyler presented Rx for Change: Integrating Implementation Science and Behavioral Economics to Expand Buprenorphine Prescribing, offering an innovative approach that blends behavioral economics with implementation science to improve access to buprenorphine treatment. 

• Kay defended Surviving But Not Healing: A Critical Look at the Intersection of Resilience and Substance Use among Black Americans, which reframes resilience as a culturally grounded, multidimensional concept—incorporating internal strengths, social support, spirituality, and social determinants—to deepen understanding of how resilience manifests in Black people who use drugs.

Kanila successfully proposed her dissertation study titled Examining Racialized Drug Socialization among Black Primary Caregivers: A qualitative study. Kanila will begin qualitative data collection in the form of a focus group and individual interviews during the Fall 2025 term!

Brandon won the Burger Award- This spring, Brandon received the Gary K. Burger Scholarship Award, given to Doctoral student in Psychology who has evidenced achievement in employing advanced quantitative methods in research, as selected by the faculty of the Department of Psychology. Congratulations, Brandon—well done on this outstanding achievement! 

• A 3-year NIDA R15 titled OPTIMISM to design a comprehensive measure of Intervention Stigma toward medications for OUD (the research study part) and build SUD research infrastructure at UMSL (the R15 training part)
• A 4-year NIDA R33 (titled RESCUE; subcontract from U of Minnesota) to refine, improve, and scale decision-making tools to optimize harm reduction supply distribution 

• Our full Addiction Science team gave 8 presentations - 4 posters and 4 oral abstracts! - and otherwise successfully balanced working hard and playing hard :) 
• Kay won a selective "Growing a Diverse Workforce Award" that covered her entire conference experience and connects her to a mentorship and networking network for years to come!