Behavioral Health and Tobacco: The Final Frontier

Cathy McDonald, MD, MPH is the Project Director for the Alameda County Alcohol Tobacco and Other Drug Provider Network funded by the Alameda County Tobacco Control Coalition thru Tobacco Settlement Funds.

She is a pediatrician and medical consultant at Thunder Road Adolescent Drug Treatment Program a tobacco-free therapeutic community for teens. She has 16 years of experience working in Alameda County Tobacco Control efforts, 13 years as ATOD Project Director, directing the program, developing evidence-based training curricula, providing evidence-based technical assistance, and serving as the lead trainer.

She has provided tobacco training and technical assistance for over 2000 staff in over 80 substance abuse and mental health agencies in the Bay Area. The ATOD Provider Network works collaboratively with Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Services and has been funded by this agency since 2008.

She is a certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist and has led cessation groups for adults and youth in the past and provides one on one tobacco counseling. She is a member of the Motivational Interviewing Network of Trainers. The Project staff consulted on the new Alameda County Behavioral Health Care Provider Tobacco Policies and Consumer Treatment Protocols. The network has contributed to changing the cultural norms and helped shift attitudes and behaviors around addressing tobacco in clinical treatment settings in Alameda County and many other Bay Area and N.CA counties.

She works collaboratively with Judy Gerard who has been the Project Manager for the ATOD Provider Network since its inception in 1998.

Chad Morris, Ph.D. is a licensed clinical psychologist and Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado- School of Medicine. At CU he is the Director of the Behavioral Health & Wellness Program (BHWP) and Wellness Leadership Institute. BHWP also houses the Rocky Mountain Tobacco Treatment Specialist Program. Dr. Morris is the principal investigator of over 140 projects and studies exploring the effectiveness of organizational, psychosocial, and pharmacologic whole health and tobacco cessation strategies across over 44 states and internationally. Dr. Morris is a seasoned Motivational Interviewing trainer and member of the MI Network of Trainers (MINT). As the Vice President of Spark Inspiration, Dr. Morris also offers corporate wellness solutions.

Megan Piper, PhD, is an assistant professor in the University of Wisconsin, Department of Medicine, and a lead researcher at UW-CTRI. Megan is most interested in understanding tobacco dependence, because “if we understand it better, we can treat it better.”

She is also interested in specific groups of smokers who have more difficulty quitting, such as women and smokers with mental illness. Megan analyzes data, writes papers and works with the data department to manage research data. Megan started at UW-CTRI in 1999 when she worked on the Public Health Service Guideline: Treating Tobacco Use and Dependence that was published in 2000. She recently served as the Project Scientist for the 2008 PHS Guideline (http://www.ctri.wisc.edu/Researchers/researchers_CPGupdate2008.htm ) update.

A Madison native, she spent her undergraduate years at Carlton College, graduating with a degree in chemistry. She then switched to clinical psychology and obtained her masters at Miami University in Ohio. “I learned that I preferred studying people to test tubes.”
She then moved back to her hometown of Madison and earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at UW-Madison. Megan and her husband, Kyle, live in Verona with their young daughters Jori and Josie. Megan has a variety of interests, including reading, doing SUDOKU and crossword puzzles, baking and spending time with her family.

Jill M. Williams, MD, is Associate Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey (UMDNJ)-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick. She also holds faculty appointments with the UMDNJ-School of Public Health Tobacco Dependence Program and the Cancer Institute of New Jersey. She received her medical degree from UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in Piscataway and completed her residency training at Duke University Medical Center in Durham, North Carolina. Dr. Williams also completed a fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School.

A Diplomate in Psychiatry, Dr. Williams is board-certified by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology with Added Qualifications in Addiction Psychiatry. She is a member of the Association for the Treatment of Tobacco Use and Dependence, the American Psychiatric Association, the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, and the American Association of Community Psychiatrists. She was awarded the Silver Award for the CHOICES (Consumers Helping Others Improve their Condition by Ending Smoking) Program by the American Psychiatric Association Institute of Psychiatric Services in 2009. Dr Williams is the CME Course Director for a two-day training conference for Psychiatrists, Advanced Practice Nurses, and other Mental Health Professionals on Tobacco Dependence Treatment.

Dr. Williams is currently Principal Investigator of a double-blind, placebo-controlled trial of nicotine nasal spray as a smoking cessation aid in schizophrenia. Her publications have appeared in numerous journals including Nicotine and Tobacco Research, the Journal of the American Medical Association, and the Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment.