- June 2026:
- We're wishing Kanila the very best as she heads off for internship! Before her "escape from St. Louis," she celebrated in style by conquering an escape room with the ASPIRE Lab. We'll miss her around the lab, but we can't wait to see all she'll accomplish during this exciting next chapter. Good luck, Kanila!
- ASPIRE Lab Spotlight: Congratulations to Kay on being featured in the Youth and Family newsletter! We're proud to see her work highlighted and recognized, and we're excited to celebrate this well-deserved accomplishment. Congratulations, Kay!
- May 2026:
- The ASPIRE Lab was excited to present at Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction in Kansas City! Dr. Rachel Winograd, Schyler, Brandon, and Frances presented "Attitudes and Capacity as Barriers to MOUD in Recovery Housing: Findings from the MO I-STARR Project," highlighting research on the factors that influence access to medications for opioid use disorder (MOUD) in recovery housing. We're grateful for the opportunity to share our work and connect with others working to improve addiction care across the region!
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Congratulations to Schyler on receiving the Sherman Award! This award recognizes outstanding achievement and dedication, and we are thrilled to see Schyler's hard work and contributions honored. We are so proud to celebrate this well-deserved recognition and can't wait to see all that's ahead!
- April 2026:
- Congratulations to Kanila on matching to her top internship choice after an incredibly successful application season! This achievement reflects her hard work, dedication, and passion, and we’re so excited to see what she’ll accomplish next. Wishing her all the best as she heads to New Mexico!
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The ASPIRE Lab had a great time at this year's Missouri Spring Training Institute! Dr. Rachel Winograd, Kanila, Kay, Schyler, and Frances presented "From Research to Practice: Diverse Approaches to Understanding and Addressing Substance Use," sharing how our research is helping inform real-world approaches to substance use prevention, treatment, and harm reduction. We're always grateful for opportunities to connect, learn, and share our work with others across the state!
- March 2026:
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Congratulations to Frances on successfully proposing her thesis, Understanding Patterns and Predictors of Harm Reduction Endorsement! Her research explores how people endorse different harm reduction strategies and the factors that shape those beliefs, with the goal of informing more effective and compassionate approaches to substance use care. We are excited to see this important work move forward and look forward to following her research journey!
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- November 2025:
- Congratulations to our fearless leader, Rachel Winograd, for doing an outstanding job hosting the 2025 AMERSA Conference! Her leadership and organization were evident throughout, and her well-timed humor kept the conference engaging and welcoming. We’re grateful for her vision and proud to celebrate such a successful event!
- August, 2025:
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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!
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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 )!
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We’re delighted to announce that both Schyler and Kay have successfully defended their specialty papers—marking important academic achievements for our lab community!
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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.
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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.
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- July, 2025:
- This summer, 3rd year graduate student Brandon Park successfully defended his master's thesis titled Measurement Invariance of the Naloxone-Related Risk Compensation Beliefs ( NaRRC -B) Scale Across Demographic and Professional Groups . Great job Brandon!
- June, 2025:
- Kay won the Primm -Singleton Travel Award and Presented at CPDD 25- This summer, Kay presented her research at the Coll ege on Problems of Drug Dependence 2025 Annual Meeting — a national and international forum for scientists of diverse backgrounds . She was also one of five recipients of the CPDD Primm-Singleton Minority Travel Award. This is a very competitive award and a huge honor. Congratulations Kay!
- Brandon presented at CPDD- This summer , Brandon presented his research at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence 2025 Annual Meeting—a national and international forum for scientists of diverse backgrounds . Great job , Brandon!
- May, 2025:
- Kanila Won the Sherman Award- This spring, Kanila received the Lewis J. Sherman Memorial Scholarship Award, given to the clinical student who demonstrates the best overall performance across coursework, research progress, clinical work, and program citizenship, as selected by the faculty of the Clinical Psychology graduate program. Congratulations, Kanila—well done on this outstanding achievement!
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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!
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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!
- April, 2025:
- Schyler and Brandon Presented at CPA- This spring, Schyler and Brandon presented their research at the Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction (CPA) conference—an influential gathering that unites scientists and practitioners dedicated to advancing addiction psychology research. Great job , Schyler and Brandon!
- December, 2024 - We wrapped up a fabulous and productive (aka fabulously productive) Fall 2024 semester!
- Schyler and Kay successfully proposed their Specialties (the first step of their comprehensive exams)!
- We got two NIH grants! (see Research tab)
- 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
- We went to two big conferences - the Addiction Health Services Research (AHSR) conference in San Francisco, and the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research on Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA) in Chicago
- 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!
- We had two papers accepted to JSAT's special issue on opioid-driven policy - An Interrupted Time Series analysis showing the respective roles of fentanyl and grant-funded naloxone coming to the STL region (Schyler et al., 2024) and a 5 year follow-up on Missouri's implementation of the Medication First approach to opioid use disorder treatment (Winograd et al., 2025)
- July 2024 - Soooo sad to say goodbye to our Lab Coordinator extraordinaire, Rashmi Ghonasgi, as she heads to the University of Central Florida to pursue her PhD in clinical psychology. We aregrateful for Rashmi's time with us and we will miss her dearly!
- April 2024 - Shout out to Brandon Park who not only submitted and presented an abstract at AP-LS this past week, but also proposed his thesis and got approved without revision!
- January 2024 - Thank you to Dr. Morgan Shields for presenting on her work in quality of care in inpatient mental health treatment and for kicking off our 2024 SURG Brunch n Learn schedule!
- September 2023 - Thank you to Dr. Jeremiah Weinstock at SLU for his wonderful presentation on Contingency Management and Gambling addiction at our SURG Brunch n Learn! We really appreciated you taking the time to speak about your work in Indiana and Missouri!
- August 2023 - The ASPIRE Lab welcomes our new grad student, Brandon Park! Looking forward to working with you Brandon :)
- August 2023 - Schyler and the rest of the Summer SURG (substance use research group) students complete and present their summer research projects! Y'all knocked it out of the park!
- July 2023 - The ASPIRE Lab kicks of the MO ISTARR Project with a SME (subject matter expert kick off)! Thank you all for your help!
- May, 2023 - Dr. Winograd was featured on The Addiction Psychologist podcast to speak on the Harm Reduction approach towards Opioid Use Disorder! Check out her podcast episode (and other episodes of The Addiction Psychologist)
- April, 2023 - Our wonderful ASPIRE undergrads, Aurora Rojo and Allison Token, both won awards for poster content and presentation at the Undergraduate Research Symposium! Congratulations to both of you for doing such an amazing job!
- April, 2023 - Our ASPIRE grad student, Schyler Newman, successfully passed her thesis presentation with flying colors! Many congratulations to her for knocking it out of the park!
- April, 2023 - We had our 4th SURG Brunch n Learn with a guest panel of St. Louis based Addiction Science Researchers! Thank you so much Dr. McCall, Dr. Al-Hasani, and Dr. Marotta! We really appreciated all the knowledge you imparted to us!
- March, 2023 - Zach is very excited to teach us Chi Squared statistics! Looking forward to more learning opportunities and giving Zach more opportunities to be excited :)
- January, 2023 - We had our very first SURG Brunch n Learn! Looking forward to many more meetings/workshops where we learn about public health, addiction science, and professional development tools!
- December, 2022 - The MIMH AddSci team and ASPIRE Lab celebrated the end of a great year and semester with a Holiday Party! Time to recharge and get ready for another amazing year! (Pictured in image (from right to left): Schyler Newman, Melissa Nance, Rashmi Ghonasgi, and Rithvik Kondai).
- December, 2022 - The ASPIRE Lab had its final meeting of the semester where some our lovely members presented their research proposals and used the new tech we have set up! Happy holidays everyone :)
- December, 2022 - The ASPIRE Lab has some new tech thanks to our lovely lab members who helped set it up! (Pictured in image (from left to right): Rithvik Kondai, Schyler Newman, Rashmi Ghonasgi).
- November, 2022 - MIMH got featured in an UMSL Daily article
- November, 2022 - MIMH and part of the ASPIRE Lab attended the 46th annual AMERSA conference! Many of our folks (included our own Dr. Winograd shown below) presented research.
- October, 2022 - MIMH and part of the ASPIRE Lab attended the 13th National Harm Reduction Conference in Puerto Rico! We learned so much from the many experts in the field who presented and spoke on topics very near and dear to our hearts :).
- September, 2022 - Our first in person ASPIRE Lab Meeting! Looking forward to a great semester with these folks :) (Pictured in left image (from left to right): Aurora Rojo, Schyler Newman, Allison Token, Rashmi Ghonasgi, Rithvik Kondai, Rachel Winograd. Pictured in right image (from left to right): Schyler Newman, Allison Token, Rachel Winograd).
- June, 2022 - Grateful for our Clinical Psych Summer SURG (Substance Use Research Group) students and members of the UMSL-MIMH Addiction Science team for helping to pack a TON of Fentanyl Test Strips to go out across the state of Missouri! People deserve to know what they're putting in their bodies. These strips can help. (Pictured top left, clockwise: Aaron Ruiz, Miles Hoffman, Alex Duello, Khrystyna Stetsiv, Melissa Nance, Kanila Brown).
- May, 2022 - The ASPIRE Lab is welcoming our first graduate student within the Department of Psychological Sciences. Schyler Newman will be joining us in August, 2022 as a first year in the Clinical area. She is coming from a Clinical Research Coordinator position at the University of Pennsylvania. Welcome, Schyler!
