HRRL Faculty
Harm Reduction Research Lab (HRRL) faculty contribute expertise from across disciplines and across the lifespan to advance harm reduction and community-engagement science. Key areas of expertise include implementation science, policy and systems science, medical sociology, organizational development, law, medicine and nursing, aging, pharmacy practice, harm reduction practice, nonprofit management, traumatology, intervention design and testing, workforce development, pain, and opioid use disorder treatment.
Beth Meyerson, PhD
Director, Harm Reduction Research Lab
Beverly Benson McCord Endowed Chair, College of Nursing
Professor of Family & Community Medicine
bmeyerson@arizona.edu | 520-626-0275
bluesky: @bethmeyerson.bsky.social
twitter/x: @beth_meyerson
LinkedIn: Dr. Beth Meyerson
Dr. Beth Meyerson is a policy and systems researcher trained in implementation science with a Community Based Participatory Action Research orientation. She Directs the Harm Reduction Research Lab and is the Policy Director for the Comprehensive Center for Pain and Addiction.
Jon Agley, PhD, MPH
Dr. Jon Agley is an applied health scientist with a focus on methodology, meta-science, and implementation. He is the Deputy Director of Research at Prevention Insights at the Indiana University School of Public Health – Bloomington.
Tara Azad, DNP, MSN-L, RN, CNE
Dr. Tara Azad is an Assistant Clinical Professor for the College of Nursing at the University of Arizona. She has expertise in mental health nursing with an emphasis on substance use disorders. Her long-term research goal is to establish a trauma-informed care approach for teaching and delivering care for those living with mental health and substance use disorders.
Benjamin Brady, DrPH, MPH
Dr. Benjamin Brady is an Assistant Professor at Western Michigan University. He studies social factors that influence substance use and work to improve access to harm reduction services, patient-centered care, medication for opioid use disorder, and peer and family support services.
Gregory Carter, PhD
Dr. Greg Carter is an Assistant Professor and Interim Associate Dean of the Indiana University School of Nursing in Bloomington. His research is dedicated to enhancing healthcare accessibility for marginalized groups, specifically men who have sex with men and individuals coping with substance use disorders.
Zhanette H. Coffee, PhD
Zhanette H. Coffee, PhD, is a nurse scientist and certified family nurse practitioner specializing in integrative health approaches, whole-person health, and multimodal interventions in the interrelated areas of addiction, chronic pain, and mental health. Dr. Coffee’s long-term research goal is advancing addiction and pain science, using innovative mind-body interventions and comprehensive evidence-based care to support a dual patient-provider multilevel impact.
Richard Crosby, PhD
Dr. Richard Crosby is an Endowed Professor in the Department of Health Behavior & Society, College of Public Health, University of Kentucky. His current teaching focuses on aging and public health policy and programs.
Alissa Davis, PhD
Dr. Alissa Davis is an epidemiologist and Associate Professor at the Columbia University School of Social Work. Her research develops and evaluates interventions to improve linkage to and retention in care for HIV/STI, substance use, and mental health services for marginalized and vulnerable populations, including racial/ethnic and sexual minorities and adolescents and young adults. She is interested in novel methods of intervention development and assessment, including intensive longitudinal methods, dyad-based interventions, and the Multiphase Optimization Strategy. She has worked in the U.S. and internationally in Eastern Europe, Central Asia, and China.
Jennifer De La Rosa, PhD
Dr. Jenn De La Rosa is a sociologist and data scientist specializing in health equity, workforce development, and health systems reform in the interrelated areas of chronic pain, substance use, and mental illness. She has worked in diverse content areas focusing on themes of self-determination, empowerment, adaptation, and skills enhancement.
Lori Ann Eldridge, PhD
Dr. Lori Ann Eldridge is an assistant professor at East Carolina University, North Carolina. She is a public health implementation scientist specializing in substance use. Her research is dedicated to examining the accessibility of prevention, treatment, and harm reduction services for substance use in rural and underserved communities.
David Frank, PhD
Dr. David Frank is a medical sociologist and Assistant Research Scientist at New York University’s School of Global Public Health. He is a person who uses drugs and has been on methadone maintenance treatment for approximately twenty years. His work primarily focuses on methadone maintenance treatment and problematizes the use of addiction-and-recovery narratives to conceptualize treatment.
Axl Kaminski, JD, PhD(c)
Axl Kaminski is a legal scholar, sociologist, and harm reductionist who studies health, inequality, and the wars on drugs and crime. Axl draws on both his lived experience and formal training in law and sociology. His research is grounded in critical sociology, critical drug studies, and law & society scholarship with emphasis on how systems of power classify, punish, and manage marginalized populations. Axl’s community work and research center the voices, knowledge, and resistance strategies of those most impacted by criminalization and surveillance.
Linnea Linde-Krieger, PhD, LCSW
Dr. Linnea Linde-Krieger is an assistant professor with the Arizona State University School of Social Work. Dr. Linde-Krieger is a developmental psychologist, and licensed clinical social worker with over a decade of clinical and research experience. Her ongoing research, which is funded by the National Institutes of Health and the Arizona Institute for Mental Health Research, identifies risk and protective factors for substance misuse during transitional developmental periods, examines infant development and neuroendocrine regulation following prenatal substance exposure, and fosters recovery through implementation science and harm reduction practices.
Arlene Mahoney, MSW
Arlene Mahoney is the executive director of Southwest Recovery Alliance (SWRA), a grassroots harm reduction organization in Phoenix, Arizona. She serves as co-chair of the Drug Policy Research and Advocacy Board (DPRAB) and is a member of the leadership team of the Hepatitis C Free AZ coalition.
Elizabeth Miller, MS
Elizabeth Miller is a study coordinator on the MPACT team. Elizabeth has a BA in Psychology from the University of Arizona and a MS in the Science of Health Care Delivery from Arizona State University. She is passionate about access to quality health care, harm reduction, LGBTQIA+ health and wellness, and cultivating community. Elizabeth has lived in Tucson for over 10 years now, but still enjoys getting to cool off in the summer months by visiting family in Flagstaff.
Nina Vadiei, PharmD, BCPP
Dr. Nina Vadiei is a Clinical Associate Professor at the University of Texas at Austin College of Pharmacy and a practicing Clinical Psychiatric Pharmacist at San Antonio State Hospital in San Antonio, TX. She is interested in improving access to and delivery of mental health care, including substance use disorders, and expanding psychiatric pharmacy services.
Carolanne Wartman, PharmD
Dr. Carolanne Wartman is a Clinical Assistant Professor at the University of Arizona R. Ken Coit College of Pharmacy and serves as an Advanced Practice Psychiatric Pharmacist at El Rio Health in Tucson, AZ. Her passion for harm reduction began as a student and now drives her commitment to integrating harm reduction principles into the pharmacy curriculum. Her primary areas of focus include reducing the stigma around substance use disorders, developing innovative teaching methods, and enhancing mental health outcomes for marginalized populations.