ARG is governed by an executive committee comprised of senior scientists, the scientific director, administrative services manager, and three other elected staff who serve as at-large members for three years. The scientific director is appointed by the committee to serve a renewable two-year term. Members represent the breadth of research interests, administrative knowledge and leadership experience necessary to ensure the mission, strategic direction and goals of the organization are met. All staff are encouraged to participate on a variety of subcommittees that advise the executive committee.
Members
William Kerr, PhD, is Scientific Director and Director of ARG’s NIAAA National Alcohol Research Center and its T32 training program at the University of California Berkeley. Dr. Kerr received his Ph.D. in economics from the University of California-Davis (1997). From 1997 to 2001 Dr. Kerr served as the Project Director of the Collaborative Alcohol Related Longitudinal Project in the Department of Social & Behavioral Sciences at UCSF before joining ARG. He is recognized for his studies of alcohol use and problems, measurement methods, age-period-cohort studies on drinking pattern trends, mortality studies and policy analyses. He is currently the PI of multiple NIH funded R01 grants including a study of the legalization of cannabis in the state of Washington that continues a prior R01 on the privatization of the Washington state liquor monopoly in 2012. Dr. Kerr is also MPI of a project developing measures of secondhand harms from alcohol and drug use that will include a US survey to estimate these. He has been Director of ARG’s Center on the Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems, which focuses on disparities, since 2016 where he currently co-leads the National Alcohol Surveys and a project on the drinking behavior of those with health conditions, building on prior studies of the effects of lifecourse drinking patterns on health outcomes. He also is a collaborator on a number of other grants including a study examining the role of alcohol in the recent US life expectancy decline, a study of policy effects on pregnant women’s drinking and pregnancy outcomes and a study on impacts of the COVID pandemic on drinking and related outcomes. Dr. Kerr is an Associate Editor of Addiction, serves on the editorial board of Contemporary Drug Problems and on the National Alcohol Beverage Control Association (NABCA) Public Health Advisory Board.
Priscilla Martinez, MPhil, PhD, is Deputy Scientific Director. Dr. Martinez is a scientist and former post-doctoral fellow at ARG/UC Berkeley (2013-2016). She received her MPhil in International Community Health and her PhD in Epidemiology from the University of Oslo in Norway. She is Co-Director of the National Alcohol Surveys (NAS) conducted under ARG’s Center on the Epidemiology of Alcohol Problems, and Co-Investigator on the Center Health Disparities project studying awareness of alcohol’s effects on the risk of various health conditions. She received funding from the California Breast Cancer Research Program (CBCRP) to lead the Drink Less for Your Breasts project, the first US-based campaign to inform young women that alcohol use is a risk factor for breast cancer. Dr. Martinez work also includes studying the role of inflammation in alcohol-related racial and ethnic health disparities, survey methods for collecting biological samples in national surveys, improving recruitment of racial and ethnic minorities in alcohol research, and the effectiveness of mutual help alternatives. Dr. Martinez is currently PI of an R01 studying alcohol and mental health trajectories over the course of the Covid-19 pandemic, utilizing both longitudinal data based on the NAS and qualitative data. She is also a lecturer at the School of Public Health at the University of California, Berkeley, where she has taught survey research methods and currently instructs the Advanced Alcohol Research Seminar.
Cheryl J. Cherpitel, Dr.PH, Senior Scientist at ARG, an adjunct professor at the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health, and Director of the World Health Organization Collaboration Centre on Alcohol Epidemiology and Injury. Between November 2004 and 2008 she served on NIAAA’s National Advisory Council. In addition, she has served as a consultant for the National Institutes of Health, the World Health Organization, and the Pan American Health Organization. She has also served on the Initial Review Group of the NIAAA’s Clinical and Treatment Subcommittee. Dr. Cherpitel’s research areas of interest include: alcohol-related casualties and violence-related injuries in emergency room (ER) populations internationally; the validity of self-reported alcohol consumption based on breathalyzer readings in the ER; and screening for alcohol problems in health care settings and in the general population. Cherpitel holds a bachelor’s in nursing from the University of California at San Francisco and a doctorate in epidemiology from the University of California at Berkeley’s School of Public Health.
Libo Li, PhD, is a biostatistician and co-directs the Statistics and Data Services Core. He completed his doctoral work at the University of California, Los Angeles where he studied measurement and psychometrics. He has extensive experience in methodological development and evaluation of advanced models for social and behavioral research (e.g., competing risk survival analysis, structural equation modeling, generalized linear mixed modeling, multilevel modeling, and marginal structural modeling), traditional and item response theory approaches to measurement, and application of new methods to data analysis (e.g., investigation of recovery from illicit drug abuse using recurrent event analysis).
Camillia Lui, PhD, is a Scientist at ARG and former NIAAA postdoctoral fellow at ARG/UC Berkeley (2013-2015). She received her MPH and MA in Community Health Sciences and Asian American Studies, and PhD in Community Health Sciences, all from University of California, Los Angeles. Her prior work in community organizing and program evaluation in substance abuse prevention programs and Asian American and Pacific Islander communities has continued to inform her research interests and research approach. Through a life-course perspective and social epidemiological approaches, Camillia’s research focuses on social determinants of health as well as alcohol/tobacco/drug abuse prevention for adolescents and young adults, using qualitative and quantitative methods. In addition, through collaboration with community partners, she prioritizes dissemination of research findings to practice and building organizational capacity for research.
Nina Mulia, DrPH, Senior Scientist, is Center Associate Director and Director of Alcohol Services. She specializes in and has published widely on racial/ethnic and socioeconomic disparities in heavy drinking, alcohol problems, and alcohol services utilization. She has been PI of four NIAAA grants investigating alcohol-related disparities, and involving analyses of large national data sets such as the NAS, NESARC and NLSY. These include her current study of heavy drinking over the life course from adolescence to middle age (R01 AA022668), a study to explain racial/ethnic disparities in heavy drinking and alcohol problems that examines multilevel risk and protective factors (R01 AA020474, M-PI with S. Zemore), a study of disparities in access to alcohol services, and an early study examining race/ethnicity, social stressors such as poverty and discrimination, and alcohol use and problems (R21 AA015397).
Jose Reyes is a technology specialist who has been supporting ARG’s network infrastructure since 2007. He is a committed IT member who enjoys providing strong customer-service support to staff and collaborators, and making sure all systems are operational and services are readily available.
Michelle Salinardi, MPA is the research program manager at ARG. She holds an advanced degree in public administration (MPA) from the University of New Haven. Michelle has spent her career working in an administrative, research, quality management, and clinical capacity with those suffering from mental illness and addiction issues. She has over 25 years of management experience which includes her roles as a program manager for several Public Health Institute programs including the Behavioral Health and Research Studies program, Center to Advance Community Health and Equity (CACHE) and Communities Rise Together (RISE). She has also served as a research manager for the Stroke Sciences Group, University of California, San Francisco, operations manager of the Addiction and Pharmacology Research Laboratory (APRL) at California Pacific Medical Center Research Institute, and her direction of the dual diagnosis residential and day treatment program at the Hines VA Hospital. Michelle also has extensive experience as a quality management analyst for the hospital-based inpatient and outpatient psychiatric and substance abuse programs at West Haven VA Hospital. She is well-versed in program operations, good clinical practices, and managing National Institute of Health (NIH) and industry sponsored single- and multi-site clinical and pharmacology trials and has co-authored papers in both addiction and psychiatry.
Diane Schmidt, MSc, is the senior communications & development specialist at ARG. She graduated with a Masters of Science in Epidemiology and Health Care from the University of British Columbia, Canada. As a freelance writer with a diverse background in filmmaking, graphic design, marketing, health care communications and epidemiology, Diane’s experience ranges from the operation of international educational programs to the promotion and implementation of patient-centered initiatives. She has conducted research for the Mental Health Commission of Canada, The Center for Excellence in HIV/AIDS, Alberta Health, and the University of British Columbia’s Center for Clinical Epidemiology & Evaluation. In her current role, Diane leads ARG’s dissemination efforts to ensure research findings are presented in an accessible and digestible format that reaches diverse audiences. She is also responsible for planning, organizing, and managing development activities for the organization. She co-founded and operates a software company that builds cloud-based tools to assist health care organizations allocate resources for better health outcomes.
Thomas K. Greenfield, PhD, is a Senior Scientist and co-directs the Center’s statistical services core. In addition, Greenfield serves as a clinical faculty member of the clinical services research training program at the University of California San Francisco’s department of psychiatry. Greenfield received his PhD in clinical psychology from The University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. He conducted research for eight years at Washington State University, and then served as Associate Director for Research at the Marin Institute for the Prevention of Alcohol and Other Drug Problems before coming to ARG. He has served as vice president and secretary of the Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Study of Alcohol. For NIAAA he served on the Initial Review Group on Health Services Research (AA2) and served on the Extramural Advisory Board. In November 2008 he received the ATOD Section of the American Public Health Association’s Leadership Award, and also serves on the Governing Council of APHA. With regard to research, he oversees the Center’s 5-year National Alcohol Surveys (NAS) and serves as Principal Investigator for several grants associated with the NAS. Greenfield’s other research interests include: the epidemiology of alcohol use and problems, alcohol policy studies, consumer satisfaction, drinking patterns and mortality, and services research.
Sarah E. Zemore, PhD, is Associate Director, Co-Director of Training, and Senior Scientist. She is Dual Principal Investigator of the NIAAA Training Grant “Graduate Research Training on Alcohol Problems” at the School of Public Health, University of California (UC) Berkeley, as well as Associate Adjunct Professor in the same department at UC Berkeley, where she teaches. She currently serves on the Initial Review Group on Epidemiology, Prevention, & Behavior Research (AA-2) at NIAAA, and was a recipient of an NIAAA Loan Repayment Award. Dr. Zemore has led and collaborated on several large NIAAA-funded grants addressing her research interests, which concern 1) health disparities (and especially race/ethnicity, socioeconomic stress, and sex in relation to alcohol use, problems, and treatment) and 2) treatment seeking and efficacy (with a focus on mutual help groups and peer helping). She has been particularly active in mentorship and training at ARG. Dr. Zemore received her Ph.D. in Social Psychology from the University of Massachusetts, Amherst.
