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Presidential Addresses

Presidential Addresses

Presidential I – Dr. Eliseo. J. Perez-Stable, Director, NIMHD  (see details)
Wednesday, May 31, 2017, 8:30 am – 9:45 am

Presidential II – Dr. George F. Koob, Director, NIAAA (see details)
Thursday, June 2, 2017, 4:45 pm – 5:45 pm

Presidential Address I

Wednesday, May 31, 2017

8:30 am – 9:45 am

Regency Ballroom A

Welcome and Introduction:  Richard F. Catalano, PhD, Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Co-founder, Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington

Speaker: Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, MD, Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH).

Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, MD

Eliseo J. Pérez-Stable, M.D., is Director of the National Institute on Minority Health and Health Disparities (NIMHD) at the National Institutes of Health (NIH). He oversees the Institute’s $281 million budget to conduct and support research, training, research capacity and infrastructure development, public education, and information dissemination programs to improve minority health and reduce health disparities. NIMHD is the lead organization at NIH for planning, reviewing, coordinating, and evaluating minority health and health disparities research activities conducted by NIH Institutes and Centers.

Dr. Pérez-Stable’s expertise spans a broad range of health disparities disciplines. His research interests have centered on improving the health of racial and ethnic minorities and underserved populations, advancing patient-centered care, improving cross-cultural communication skills among health care professionals, and promoting diversity in the biomedical research workforce.

Recognized as a leader in Latino health care and disparities research, Dr. Pérez-Stable has spent more than 30 years leading research on smoking cessation and tobacco control policy in Latino populations in the United States and Latin America. His collaborations with researchers and public health advocates in Argentina have helped to put tobacco use on the country’s public health agenda, raising awareness of tobacco use as a critical public health problem, building capacity for tobacco control policy, and creating opportunities for prevention and treatment measures through physician education and smoking cessation programs.

Prior to becoming NIMHD Director, Dr. Pérez-Stable built a career at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF), where he was a professor of medicine, chief of the Division of General Internal Medicine, and director of the Center for Aging in Diverse Communities (CADC), which is funded by NIH’s National Institute on Aging (NIA). Through the CADC, he continued his commitment to developing a diverse workforce in clinical and population science research by mentoring and collaborating with many minority fellows and junior faculty from a variety of disciplines. Dr. Pérez-Stable was also Director of the UCSF Medical Effectiveness Research Center for Diverse Populations, which addresses issues for African Americans, Asians, and Latinos in the areas of cancer, cardiovascular disease, aging, and reproductive health.

As a co-principal investigator of the Redes En Acción National Latino Cancer Control Research and Education Network funded by the National Cancer Institute (NCI), Dr. Pérez-Stable spearheaded the development of a research agenda on tobacco control for minority populations in the United States. In addition, he was an NCI-funded Staff Investigator and Assistant Director for Health Care Disparities at the UCSF Comprehensive Cancer Center as well as a member of the NCI and Legacy Foundation’s Tobacco Disparities Research Network (TReND).

Dr. Pérez-Stable has been a leader in the field of research on aging among minorities and served as a member of the National Institute on Aging’s Advisory Council from 2011 to 2014 and as the chair of the Council’s Minority Task Force on Aging from 2012 to 2014. He has authored numerous scientific papers, reviewed articles for a variety of professional publications, and delivered keynote lectures and presentations at many domestic and international conferences.

Dr. Pérez-Stable has received many honors and awards throughout his career, including UCSF’s Kaiser Award for Excellence in Teaching, the Society of General Internal Medicine’s John M. Eisenberg National Award for Career Achievement in Research, and election to the National Academy of Medicine (formerly Institute of Medicine) of the National Academy of Sciences. He was honored with the UCSF Lifetime Achievement in Mentoring Award in July 2015. Dr. Pérez-Stable was born in Cuba and grew up in Miami, Florida. He earned his B.A. in chemistry from the University of Miami and his M.D. from the University of Miami School of Medicine. He completed his primary care internal medicine residency and research fellowship at UCSF.

Presidential Address II

Thursday, June 1, 2017

4:45pm – 5:45pm

Regency Ballroom A

Welcome and Introduction:  Richard F. Catalano, PhD, Bartley Dobb Professor for the Study and Prevention of Violence, Co-founder, Social Development Research Group, School of Social Work, University of Washington

Speaker: George F. Koob, PhD, Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), National Institutes of Health (NIH)

George F. Koob, PhD

George F. Koob, PhD, is an internationally-recognized expert on alcohol and stress, and the neurobiology of alcohol and drug addiction. He is the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), where he provides leadership in the national effort to reduce the public health burden associated with alcohol misuse. As NIAAA Director, Dr. Koob oversees a broad portfolio of alcohol research ranging from basic science to epidemiology, diagnostics, prevention, and treatment.

Dr. Koob earned his doctorate in Behavioral Physiology from Johns Hopkins University in 1972. Prior to taking the helm at NIAAA, he served as Professor and Chair of the Scripps’ Committee on the Neurobiology of Addictive Disorders and Director of the Alcohol Research Center at the Scripps Research Institute. Early in his career, Dr. Koob conducted research in the Department of Neurophysiology at the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research and in the Arthur Vining Davis Center for Behavioral Neurobiology at the Salk Institute for Biological Studies. He was a post-doctoral fellow in the Department of Experimental Psychology and the MRC Neuropharmacology Unit at the University of Cambridge.

Dr. Koob began his career investigating the neurobiology of emotion, particularly how the brain processes reward and stress. He subsequently applied basic research on emotions, including on the anatomical and neurochemical underpinnings of emotional function, to alcohol and drug addiction, significantly broadening knowledge of the adaptations within reward and stress neurocircuits that lead to addiction. This work has advanced our understanding of the physiological effects of alcohol and other substance use and why some people transition from use to misuse to addiction, while others do not. Dr. Koob has authored more than 650 peer-reviewed scientific papers and is a co-author of The Neurobiology of Addiction, a comprehensive textbook reviewing the most critical neurobiology of addiction research conducted over the past 50 years.

Dr. Koob is the recipient of many prestigious honors and awards recognizing his contributions to research, mentorship, and international scientific collaboration. These include: the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA) Seixas Award for extraordinary service in advancing alcohol research; the RSA Distinguished Investigator Award; the RSA Marlatt Mentorship Award; the Daniel Efron Award for excellence in basic research and the Axelrod Mentorship Award, both from the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology; the NIAAA Mark Keller Award for his lifetime contributions to our understanding of the neurobiology of alcohol use disorder; and an international prize in the field of neuronal plasticity awarded by La Fondation Ipsen. He was recently honored by the government of France with the insignia of Chevalier de la Légion d’honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honor) for developing scientific collaborations between France and the United States.   [View the video: World-class scientist Dr Koob receives the Legion of Honor.]