Syracuse University psychology professor receives prestigious national senior scientist research award

Syracuse University psychology professor receives prestigious national senior scientist research award February 09, 2009Judy Holmesjlholmes@syr.edu

The National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) of the National Institutes of Health recently awarded Stephen A. Maisto, professor of psychology in Syracuse University’s College of Arts and Sciences, a Senior Scientist Research and Mentorship Award. The prestigious national award recognizes outstanding senior scientists who are leaders in their field.

The five-year grant, which can be renewed for an additional five years, provides an opportunity for well-respected scholars to enhance and expand their research programs. In addition to their research, award recipients are expected to disseminate their expertise by mentoring junior investigators engaged in their own research activities.

Maisto is nationally recognized for his research in the areas of alcohol and substance abuse treatment and prevention, and HIV prevention, and for his work in developing and assessing substance abuse intervention and treatment programs. He is author or co-author of more than 200 journal publications, two dozen book chapters and several books, including his most recent, “Drug Use and Abuse,” now in its 5th edition (Thomson Wadsworth Publishing Co., 2008), and “Alcohol Problems” (Hogrefe & Huber Publishers, 2007).

“On behalf of The College of Arts and Sciences, I offer our most sincere congratulations to Professor Maisto for this national recognition of his achievements as a scholar and researcher,” says Dean George Langford. “This award provides an unprecedented opportunity for Professor Maisto to further his research, support the efforts of those who are at the beginning of their careers, and to continue his role as a national leader in the field of substance abuse research, treatment and prevention.”

Maisto’s most recent area of research focuses on developing ways to integrate treatment for behavioral and psychological problems into the primary care medical setting. Primary care providers traditionally screen clients for such problems as depression, substance abuse, smoking and other issues, then refer them to specialized treatment and prevention programs. Maisto says some people may be more receptive to participating in programs offered by their family physician rather than going to a specialist with whom they are unfamiliar. He is exploring ways to adapt intervention programs to the primary care setting, identifying issues within the medical system that either facilitate or prevent primary care providers from offering these kinds of services, and evaluating behavioral and psychological intervention services that are provided in the primary care setting.

A licensed psychologist and a diplomate in clinical psychology from the American Board of Professional Psychology, Maisto is well respected as both an academic scholar and practicing clinician. After earning both a master’s degree and Ph.D. in experimental psychology at the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee in 1975, Maisto spent 10 years at Vanderbilt University doing post-graduate work in clinical psychology and as assistant professor and director of the university’s graduate studies on alcohol dependence.

In 1985, Maisto was appointed associate professor in Brown University Medical School’s Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior. While at Brown, he worked as a clinical psychologist in the alcohol dependence treatment program at the Veterans Administration Medical Center and director of alcohol and drug treatment services at Butler Hospital, both in Providence, and assistant chief for psychology and clinical psychologist in the alcohol and dependence treatment program at the VA Medical Center in Brockton, Mass.

Maisto came to SU in 1994 to accept an appointment as professor of psychology and has served as interim department chair and director of clinical training. He also holds appointments at the Research Institute on Addictions in Buffalo, at the VA Center for Integrated Health Care for the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs’ VA Healthcare Network Upstate New York, and at SUNY Upstate Medical University. He is an affiliated faculty member at the Center for Continuing Care and Recovery Monitoring in the Addictions at the University of Pennsylvania.

Maisto has been an active member of more than 50 national advisory boards involved with substance abuse treatment and prevention and mental illness. He is currently a member of the Mental Illness Research Education and Clinical Center for the Department of Veterans Affairs. He has been a past member of, or expert advisor to, panels convened by such agencies as the Veterans Administration, the National Institutes of Health, the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the National Academy of Sciences Institute of Medicine.

Maisto has also served on the editorial boards of numerous major professional journals, including Clinical Psychology Review, the Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse and the Journal of Studies on Alcohol. He is editor of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, a journal of the American Psychological Association.