SCIENTISTS
Douglas L. Polcin, Ed.D
PROGRAM DIRECTOR, SENIOR SCIENTIST
Dr Douglas L. Polcin is the founder and program director of the Behavioral Health and Recovery Studies program at the Public Health Institute (PHI). His research and teaching interests include sober living houses, peer helping, motivational interviewing, HIV risk behaviors, criminal justice mandated treatment, and the roles of coercion and supportive confrontation in treatment entry and outcome. Dr. Polcin has been an adjunct faculty member at John F. Kennedy University-Extension, Dominican University, and UC Berkeley-Extension where he has taught a variety of courses on alcohol and drug abuse. He has been a principal investigator on multiple studies funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) and the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), including seven grants studying sober living houses and three studying motivational interviewing interventions. In September 2017 he was awarded a 5-year grant by NIDA to study social environment and neighborhood influences on outcomes of persons living in sober living recovery residences. Before joining PHI, Dr. Polcin was a research psychologist at San Francisco's Haight Ashbury Free Clinics, where, in 2000, he served as principal investigator of an NIAAA-funded study entitled “Coercion to Enter Treatment from Probation Officers.” Since 1979, Dr. Polcin has worked as a clinician, supervisor and administrator in a variety of substance abuse and mental health treatment programs. Dr. Polcin completed a doctorate in counseling psychology at Northeastern University and a master's in clinical psychology at San Francisco State University. His clinical training and professional work has included positions in the Cambridge Hospital Department of Psychiatry in Massachusetts and San Francisco General Hospital, University of California, San Francisco.
Bio, Projects, Expertise: https://www.phi.org/experts/doug-polcin/
Email: DPolcin@BHRSCA.org
Phone: 925-403-1218
Publications: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/?term=Polcin
External Bio: Google Scholar Link
Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman, PhD
PROGRAM DIRECTOR/BIOSTATISTICIAN
Meenakshi Sabina Subbaraman, PhD is a program director and biostatistician at the Public Health Institute and instructor for the UC Berkeley School of Public Health. She received her MS in statistics from Stanford University and PhD in epidemiology from UC Berkeley. Her research interests include causal inference; methods for studying mediators, moderators, and mechanisms of action; recovery from substance use disorders; treatment for alcohol use disorders; cannabis and alcohol policy; cannabis/alcohol substitution and complementarity; and policies related to substance use during pregnancy. Before joining Behavioral Health and Recovery Studies, she worked with the Alcohol Research Group for 14 years where she served as the Director of Statistical and Data Services for the last two.
Amy Mericle, PhD
SCIENTIST (Consultant)
Dr. Mericle is an addiction health services researcher with expertise in recovery support services, sexual minority health disparities, adolescent risk behavior, substance use and co-occurring mental disorders, environmental factors associated with service use and recovery outcomes, integrative services delivery models. She has a long-standing history of collaboration with Dr. Polcin in his research on sober living houses. She has also led research studying recovery housing in Pennsylvania and Texas, and she is currently leading a study that will conduct a survey of different types of recovery residences across the country.
Sarah E. Zemore, PhD
SCIENTIST (Consultant)
Dr. Zemore is a Social Psychologist with interests in peer and social influences on treatment and recovery. She has an established record of research on diverse mutual-help groups including 12-step groups, SMART Recovery, LifeRing Secular Recovery, and Women for Sobriety. She has also studied the utilization and efficacy of formal substance abuse treatment, and she has a second line of research addressing racial/ethnic disparities in alcohol and drug use, problems, and treatment. Dr. Zemore has been continually funded by NIH for approximately 20 years, and has extensive experience with leading large NIH research grants.
Fried Wittman, PhD
President, CLEW Associates/Prevention by Design
Affiliate Scientist, Alcohol Research Group/Public Health Institute
Friedner D. Wittman, Ph.D, M.Arch. has forty years' experience in community planning for health and social services, environmental design, and architectural programming. From 1988 through 2011, Dr. Wittman founded and directed the Community Prevention Planning Program at the Institute for the Study of Social Change, UC Berkeley. Funded primarily by the California Department of Alcohol and Drug Programs, this program pioneered use of participatory community planning to prevent problems related high-risk availability of alcoholic and other drugs at community (city, county) levels. Currently he is president of CLEW Associates, a consulting firm he founded in 1988 that specializes in architectural programming and environmental design to support delivery of community health, safety, and social services. CLEW Associates has also created a police information system (ASIPS/GIS Community Tours) to support community-level AOD prevention planning. From 1983-88 Dr. Wittman was a founding member and project director at the Prevention Research Center (Pacific Institute for Research and Evaluation). From 1978-83 he was a research specialist with the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley, California. His education includes a Ph.D. from the University of California (Berkeley) College of Environmental Design (1983); and an M. Arch. from the University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Fine Arts in Philadelphia (1967).
RESEARCH STAFF
Liz Mahoney, MA
PROJECT MANAGER
Liz Mahoney is a research project manager at the Behavioral Health and Recovery Studies program. She received her undergraduate degree in psychology from Boston College and her masters in International Disaster Psychology from the University of Denver. Ms. Mahoney is currently the project manager for the Peer Helping, Retention, and Relapse in Sober Living Houses (NIAAA, PI: Polcin) study that examines sober living houses in the Los Angeles area and the pathways by which helping affects the outcomes of SLH residents. She previously worked on the Evidence Based Sober Living Houses: A Multi-level Analysis study and the Reducing Offenders HIV Risk project in Los Angeles. Prior to joining BHRS, Liz worked at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Studies of Addiction in the Addiction Treatment and Medication Development Division from 2008 to 2014. She was a project manager on outpatient research studies that evaluated the effectiveness of new approaches to treating addictions. Ms. Mahoney has led analyses for and first- and co-authored several papers on recovery outcomes among sober living house residents.
Daniel Mendieta, CADAC
INTERVIEWER II
Daniel Mendieta is an interviewer at the Behavioral Health and Recovery Studies program. He holds a CADAC certificate in Alcohol & Drug Addiction Counseling Studies from University of California Los Angeles. Mr Mendieta is currently working as an interviewer on the Evidence Based Sober Living Houses: A Multi-Level Analysis. This NIDA funded study examines sober living houses in the Los Angeles area and how the houses and their neighborhoods affect outcomes. This study of approximately 40 sober living houses aims to recruit 600 residents new to the houses and track them for a year. He also worked on the NIDA funded project that recruited formerly incarcerated men and women who had entered sober living houses in Los Angeles. Mr. Mendieta has over 11 years’ experience working as a field interviewer and team leader for top research organizations such as Rand Corp. RTI and Westat on a vast array of social policy, medical, and education studies. Mr. Mendieta has a background in social welfare and 20 years’ experience working on social service issues such as homelessness, drug and alcohol addiction, immigration and housing discrimination. He is originally from Peru and claims Peruvian cuisine is the best in the world.
Vikki Paulus
INTERVIEWER II
Vikki Paulus is a Field Research Interviewer at the Behavioral Health and Recovery Studies program. She holds a BA in Sociology from University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA). Ms. Paulus is currently working with the BHRS program on the, Evidence Based Sober Living Houses: A Multi-level Analysis, NIDA funded study that examines sober living houses in the Los Angeles area and how the houses and their neighborhoods affect outcomes. The study goal is to recruit approximately 40 sober living houses and 600 residents. She previously worked on the NIDA funded project that recruited men and women who had been incarcerated and entered sober living houses. Other experience includes work with the UCLA Drug Abuse Research Center where she worked on the SSI study and the Female Offender Treatment and Employment Program study among other projects. While there, she also coordinated SARC, a statewide consortium, which reports on emerging drug-use trends and their policy-related implications for the State of California.