Digital and Social Media Interventions for Smoking Cessation Among Young Adults, co-hosted by Truth Initiative

Amanda L. Graham, PhD is the Director of Research Development at the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative in Washington, DC. She is also Professor of Oncology at Georgetown University Medical Center and a member of the Lombardi Comprehensive Cancer Center. For over 15 years, Dr. Graham’s research has focused on developing, evaluating, and optimizing technology-based smoking cessation interventions. Her work has primarily focused on Internet interventions and online social networks, and she has written about the unique measurement and methodological challenges in conducting technology-based research. Dr. Graham leads a software development team at the Schroeder Institute which has developed a range of digital and social media tobacco control applications. She also runs BecomeAnEX.org, the smoking cessation website that Truth Initiative launched in 2008 as a national quit smoking resource for smokers.

Megan Jacobs focuses her research on the building, integration, and analysis of mobile and social network applications for smoking cessation. She is currently Lead, Integrated Product Design for the software development team in the Schroeder Institute for Tobacco Research and Policy Studies at Truth Initiative. Her role there includes product management to develop novel quitting applications/interventions, project management of grant-funded research studies, and client management with external partners who use these products. Megan’s previous public health work has applied technology to behavior change ranging from adolescent sexual health to vaccinations. She received her MPH from the George Washington University Milken Institute School of Public Health and is also a graduate of the University of Michigan.

Dr. Danielle Ramo is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California, San Francisco. She directs the Research on Addictions and Digital Interventions lab (readi.ucsf.edu). Her research program focuses on using digital media to change health risk behaviors including smoking. Funded with a K23 Career Development Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Dr. Ramo has developed the Tobacco Status Project social media intervention to help young adults quit smoking, and is testing its efficacy in a randomized controlled trial. Additional studies are examining patterns and toxicology of electronic-cigarette use in adolescents and tobacco and marijuana co-use in young adults funded by the California Tobacco-Related Diseases Research Program. Dr. Ramo serves as program faculty for two postdoctoral fellowships in the UCSF School of Medicine. She obtained a Bachelor of Arts from Columbia University, a Doctorate from the SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Clinical Psychology, and postdoctoral training in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSF.