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Center for Addiction and Mental Health Research

Affiliate Faculty

Em V. Adams

Em V. Adams

Name: Em V. Adams
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management
Email address: emiliea@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Building resilience after trauma and violence
  • Improving healthcare systems
  • Complementary/mindfulness interventions for mental health and substance use disorders
Kendra Allison

Kendra Allison

Name: Kendra Allison
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: College of Behavioral, Social and Health Sciences School of Nursing
Email address: kendraa@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Early adolescent mobile technology use and associated sexual risks
  • Adolescent mental health
  • Mental health equity in rural/underserved populations
  • Prevention of adolescent substance abuse
Skye Arthur-Banning

Skye Arthur-Banning

Name: Skye Arthur-Banning
Title: Association Professor and Director of Research and Development for the US Center for Mental Health and Sport
Department: PRTM
Email address: sarthur@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Mental health and sports
  • Mental health training for sport environments
  • Help-seeking in sport communities
Anna Baker

Anna Baker

Name: Anna Baker
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Psychology
Email address: abake26@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Interventions for substance use disorders
  • Barriers to/interventions for adherence
  • Behavioral pain management
Brooke L. Bennett

Brooke L. Bennett

Name: Brooke L. Bennett
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Psychology
Email address: blbenne@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Body image, disordered eating, and weight bias
  • Mental health and wellbeing
  • Impacts of social media and digital technology use
  • Technology-based assessment and intervention
  • Health disparities
Kristie Boswell

Kristie Boswell

Name: Kristie Boswell
Title: Family Nurse Practitioner, Assistant Director, Mobile Health Operations
Department: Clemson Rural Health
Email address: khirt@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Research Interests:
  • Rural health disparities
  • Mobile health units in rural communities
  • Women’s health & women’s reproductive health
Thomas Britt

Thomas Britt

Name: Thomas W. Britt
Title: Professor and Clemson Health Research Director
Department: Psychology
Email address: twbritt@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Employee resilience and thriving
  • Employees in high stress occupations
  • Mental health treatment seeking
Edmond P. Bowers

Edmond P. Bowers

Name: Edmond P. Bowers
Title: Associate Professor
Department: Youth Development Leadership
Email address: edmondb@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Positive youth development
  • Youth programs for substance use and mental health
  • Program design/evaluation
Asa T. Briggs

Asa T. Briggs

Name: Dr. Asa T. Briggs, DNP
Title: Clinical Assistant Professor
Department:  School of Nursing 
Email address: AsaB@clemson.edu

Research Interests 

  • Mental health services in marginalized communities
  • Impact of racial injustice and limited access to care on patient outcomes
  • Contextual mental health services
Matthew Browning

Matthew Browning

Name: Matthew Browning
Title: Associate Professor and Co-Director of the Virtual Reality & Nature Lab
Department: Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management
Email address: mhb2@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Environmental science and public health
  • Co-creating nature-based VR experiences
  • Impacts of natural environment factors on health outcomes
  • Health inequities, telehealth, and healthcare facility design
Kaileigh Byrne

Kaileigh Byrne

Name: Kaileigh Byrne
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Psychology
Email address: kaileib@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Decision-making and substance use disorders
  • Interventions for addiction and mental health
  • Peer recovery coaching
  • Mental health apps
Chao Fan

Chao Fan

Name: Chao Fan
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: School of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Earth Sciences
Email address: cfan@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Climate change adaptation and AI
  • Dynamics of integrated socio-environmental systems
  • Human networks and data science
  • Civil infrastructure systems
  • Smart and connected communities
Qiping Fan

Qiping Fan

Name: Qiping Fan
Title:
Assistant Professor of Epidemiology
Department:
Public Health Sciences
Email address:
qipingf@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Co-occurring substance misuse and mental health disorders
  • Community-based interventions to promote perinatal mental health
  • Digital health solutions to support caregiving
  • Machine learning applications in epidemiological studies
Ryan Gagnon

Ryan Gagnon

Name: Ryan Gagnon
Title: Associate Professor
Department: Parks, Recreation, and Tourism Management
Email Address: rjgagno@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Youth thriving
  • Out-of-school programs
  • Youth program assessment
  • Marginalized and/or underrepresented youth
  • Youth with disabilities and/or chronic illness
Barry A. Garst

Barry A. Garst

Name: Barry A. Garst
Title: Professor and Coordinator, Youth Development Programs
Department: Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management
Email address: bgarst@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Positive youth development
  • Summer camp participant and staff health
  • Parent anxiety and overparenting
  • Organizational health care practices
  • Summertime food insecurity
Lucia Gonzales

Lucia Gonzales

Name: Lucia Gonzales
Title: Associate Director of Research
Department: Clemson University School of Nursing
Email address: luciag@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Clinical cultural competence
  • Palliative care symptoms
  • Cardiovascular illness recovery
Moonseong Heo

Moonseong Heo

Name: Moonseong Heo
Title: Professor
Department: Public Health Sciences
Email address: mheo@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Identifying optimal HCV treatment patterns of daily adherence to directly acting antiviral (DAA) medications for successful cure of HCV among people who inject drugs
  • Identifying factors associated with support for harm reduction services in rural populations
  • Developing integrated and collaborative models of treating OUD
  • Developing real-time data integration and surveillance system to localize high-risk areas vulnerable to opioid overdose epidemic.
Xia Jing

Xia Jing

Name: Xia Jing
Title: Associate Professor
Department: Public Health Sciences
Email address: xjing@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Health/medical informatics applications in opioid use disorders
  • Clinical decision support systems in resource-limited primary care settings
  • Health IT interoperability
  • Ontology, knowledge bases, and machine-processable health information
  • Scientific hypothesis generation in clinical research
Karyn Ogata Jones

Karyn Ogata Jones

Name: Karyn Ogata Jones
Title: Associate Professor
Department: Communication
Email address: karynj@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Stigma in communication and health
  • Care-seeking challenges for stigmatizing conditions
  • Communication and health disparities
  • Health behavior interventions
Anjali Joseph

Anjali Joseph

Name: Anjali Joseph
Title: Professor and Endowed Chair, Director of Center for Health Facilities Design and Testing
Department: Architecture
Email address: anjalij@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Impacts of healthcare-built environment
  • Evidence-based healthcare design
  • Healthcare human factors
  • Patient and staff safety
  • Patient quality of care outcomes
Caitlin Moore Kickham

Caitlin Moore Kickham

Name: Caitlin Moore Kickham
Title: Associate Director, Clinical Operations
Department: Clemson Rural Health
Email address: caitli8@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Underserved and rural populations
  • Mobile health solutions
  • Nurse practitioner models of care
Anne Koci

Anne Koci

Name: Anne Koci
Title: Clinical Professor, Distinguished Scholar, Center for Research on Health Disparities, Coordinator, Appalachian American Alliance of Nurse Practitioners (AAANP),Clemson University
Department: School of Nursing
Email address:  akoci@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Marginalization and substance use addiction
  • Health outcomes of abuse
  • Rural/Appalachian health
  • Women’s health outcomes
Ye Luo

Ye Luo

Name: Ye Luo
Title: Professor
Department: Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
Email address: yel@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Social determinants of health
  • Individual, family, community, and societal factors on drug addiction
  • Impact of drug addiction on mental health
Rachel M. Mayo

Rachel M. Mayo

Name: Rachel M. Mayo
Title: Professor
Department: Public Health Sciences
Email address: rmayo@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Impact of substance use disorder on maternal and child health
  • Cancer prevention and control
  • Chronic disease and health disparities among minority and underserved populations
Olivia McAnirlin

Olivia McAnirlin

Name: Olivia McAnirlin
Title: Co-Director of the Virtual Reality and Nature Lab
Department: Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management
Email Address: omcanir@clemson.edu

Research Intrests:

  • Multidimensional health benefits of nature environments
  • Personalized virtual nature environments
  • Co-creating nature-based VR experiences
Bryan Lee Miller

Bryan Lee Miller

Name: Bryan Lee Miller
Title: Professor
Department: Sociology, Anthropology and Criminal Justice
Email address: blm2@clemson.edu

Research Interests:

  • Substance use/misuse and society
  • Mental illnesses and co-occurring disorders in jails and prisons
  • Drug treatment
  • Use dynamics/market factors of novel and synthetic drugs
  • Peer delinquency
Arelis Moore, PhD, Md, MPH, MEd

Arelis Moore

Name: Arelis Moore, PhD, Md, MPH, MEd
Title:
Associate Professor of Community Health
Department: Languages
Email: ared@clemson.edu

Research Interests:

  • Community health & wellbeing
  • Social determinants of health
  • Community-based participatory research
  • Health disparities
  • Latinx
Jody S. Nicholson

Jody Nicholson

Name: Jody S. Nicholson
Title: Professor
Department: Psychology
Email address: jodyn@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Health promotion and prevention
  • Risk factors disproportionately impacting minoritized groups
  • Motivation to participate in clinical trials
Brian Pitman

Brian Pitman

Name: Brian Pitman
Title: Lecturer
Department: CBSHS Department of Sociology, Anthropology, and Criminal Justice
Email address: bpitman@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Homelessness and substance use
  • Socioeconomic impacts of homelessness
  • Roles of the state and corporations in the opioid crisis
Lior Rennert

Lior Rennert

Name: Lior Rennert
Title: Assistant Professor and Director
Department: Center for Public Health Modeling and response, Department of Public Health Sciences
Email address: liorr@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Infectious disease epidemiology
  • Biostatistical models for health-related decision making
  • Substance use/addiction treatment and recovery
  • Overdose prevention in rural communities
Amanda D. Rumsey

Amanda D. Rumsey

Name: Amanda D. Rumsey
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Education and Human Development
Email address: arumsey@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Training school-based counselors
  • Mobile health counselors
  • Suicide, substance use, and trauma
  • Prevention programming in schools
Corrine Sackett

Corrine Sackett

Name: Corrine Sackett
Title: Associate Professor of Counselor Education
Department: Education and Human Development
Email address: csacket@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Client experiences in counseling
  • Counseling process from client perspectives
  • Addiction prevention and treatment
  • Mental health/addiction counseling on client engagement and outcomes
Cedomir Stanojevic

Cedomir Stanojevic

Name: Cedomir Stanojevic
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Parks, Recreation and Tourism Management
Email address: cstanoj@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Recreational interventions for disabilities and substance use
  • Intellectual disabilities and substance use
  • Technology-assisted evaluation and intervention
Amanda N. Stover

Amanda N. Stover

Name: Amanda N. Stover
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Department of Public Health Sciences
Email address: anstove@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Assessing the relationship between self-harm, suicide, and opioid use disorder
  • Evidence-based treatment and prevention strategies
  • Mental and behavioral health in rural/Appalachian communities
Jason R. Thrift

Jason R. Thrift

Name: Jason R. Thrift
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: School of Nursing
Email address: jasont@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Virtual reality interventions for patient treatment modalities and student nurse education
  • Medical-surgical nursing
  • Hospice/palliative care services
Shirley M. Timmons

Shirley M. Timmons

Name: Shirley M. Timmons
Title: Professor
Department: School of Nursing
Email address: stimmon@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Health disparities
  • African American health
  • Faith-based health programs
  • Population and community health
Irene Pericot-Valverde

Irene Pericot-Valverde

Name: Irene Pericot-Valverde
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: Psychology
Email address: iperico@clemson.edu

Research Interest

  • Tobacco and opioid use/misuse and their intersectionality
  • Improvements of treatment outcomes for addiction
  • Interventions for treating addictive behaviors
Mary Ellen Wright, PhD, APRN, CPNP-PC

Mary Ellen Wright

Name: Mary Ellen Wright, PhD, APRN, CPNP-PC
Title: Assistant Professor
Department: School of Nursing
Email address: mewrig@clemson.edu

Research Interests

  • Perinatal substance exposure
  • Kratom and other novel psychoactive substances
  • Stigma of substance use toward childbearing and childrearing women
  • Screening for substance use
Department of Psychology
Department of Psychology | 418 Brackett Hall