U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius recently appointed four new members to the National Advisory Council on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). The council advises the Secretary, the Director of the National Institutes of Health and the director of NIAAA on program and policy matters, offers recommendations on research conducted at NIAAA, and reviews applications for grants and cooperative agreements.
The 15-member council includes outstanding representatives from health and science fields relevant to NIAAA activities, as well as leaders from among the general public in fields including health policy, law, economics, and management.
“We are delighted to welcome this distinguished group of leaders to our advisory council,” said NIAAA Acting Director Kenneth R. Warren, Ph.D. “NIAAA will benefit greatly from their insight and experience.”
The recently appointed council members are:
The Honorable Linda Chezem J.D., who is a professor in the Department of Youth Development and Agriculture Education in the College of Agriculture at Purdue University, West Lafayette, Ind. The first woman to serve as a department head in the College of Agriculture, Chezem teaches at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, as well as in the law school, where her courses include Alcohol Science and Law. She also holds an adjunct appointment in the Department of Medicine at the Indiana University School of Medicine, Indianapolis. Chezem was the first woman to serve as a circuit court judge in Indiana and the second woman to be appointed as presiding judge on the Indiana Court of Appeals. In September 2007, Governor Mitch Daniels appointed her to serve on the Indiana Health Informatics Corporation Board. Among her many awards, Chezem received the Richard M. Fairbanks Circle of Hope Award from the Fairbanks Addiction Treatment Center, the oldest independent drug and treatment center in the United States, for her outstanding contributions to research, education, and treatment of drug and alcohol abuse and addiction.
Fulton Crews, Ph.D., who is the director of the Bowles Center for Alcohol Studies, and the John R. Andrews Professor of Pharmacology and Psychiatry at the School of Medicine at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill. Dr. Crews is also director of the NIAAA-supported Comprehensive Alcohol Research Center at the Bowles Center. Respected internationally for his research on addiction, neurodegeneration, depression and alcohol-related neuropathology, Crews is a longtime NIH grantee, and the author of more than 200 scientific articles published in peer reviewed journals and books. Crews serves on many editorial boards, as well as on the board of directors of several agencies. He has served on numerous NIH peer review committees and is the chair of the NIAAA Advisory Council’s Extramural Advisory Working Group. Crews has received numerous awards, including the Norbert Kelly Distinguished Award on Addiction from the Addiction Professionals of North Carolina, an NIAAA Method to Extend Research in Time Award, and the NIAAA Mark Keller Memorial Lecture Award.
Mimi Fleury, a parent who is founder and president of the Community of Concern, North Bethesda, Md., a non-profit organization that focuses on disseminating information to help keep youth free from alcohol and drug use. Her efforts to raise awareness about drinking and drug use among young people have been widely effective, and she has successfully established Community of Concern organizations in 24 states. Fleury’s organization published A Parent’s Guide for the Prevention of Alcohol, Tobacco and Other Drug Use. This booklet received critical acclaim from scientific experts and community organizations, as well as the Caron Foundation Award for Educational Excellence. Fleury received the Parents’ Council of Washington Volunteer of the Year Award for her work on this book.
Craig J. McClain, M.D., who is professor of medicine at the School of Medicine, University of Louisville and the chief of gastroenterology at the Louisville Veterans Administration Medical Center in Kentucky. McClain also serves as chief of research affairs, Division of Gastroenterology, Hepatology, and Nutrition, associate vice president for translational research, and distinguished university scholar. McClain is an internationally distinguished clinician-scientist in the fields of gastroenterology, alcoholic liver disease, nutrition, and infectious diseases including HIV/AIDS. Since 1977, McClain has earned funding from the Veterans Administration, and multiple institutes of the NIH including NIAAA, the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases, and the National Institute of Neurological Diseases and Strokes. He has published 300 peer-reviewed articles and 100 manuscripts in books and proceedings. He has been a member of many editorial boards, NIH peer review committees, and was a member of the Center for Scientific Review/NIH Advisory Council. His numerous awards include the Jewish Hospital Distinguished Chair in Hepatology and the NIAAA Method to Extend Research in Time Award. > > > > Read More
