2025 Advanced Addiction Psychopharmacology Course

Christina A. Brezing, MD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry in the Division on Substance Use Disorders at Columbia University Irving Medical Center and a Research Scientist at New York State Psychiatric Institute where she studies how applications of different technology improves the assessment and treatment of substance use disorders. She is the Principal Investigator of a NIDA-funded grant to study novel pharmacotherapy and applications of technology in the treatment of Cannabis Use Disorder. She is a Columbia Hadar Fellow and has received research support through the Columbia Smither’s Foundation, the Dartmouth Center for Technology and Behavioral Health, and the American Psychiatric Institute for Research and Education. She has served as a co-investigator or study physician on numerous NIDA-funded medication treatment trials for substance use disorders at Columbia’s Substance Treatment and Research Services (STARS) program, and clinically, she treats patients with severe and persistent mental illness and co-occurring substance use disorders. She is the director of the addiction curriculum for the Columbia psychiatry residency and co-director of the curriculum for the Columbia ACGME-T32 Substance Use Disorder Fellowship and the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry’s Advanced Addiction Psychopharmacology course.

Dr. Brezing attended Duke University for her undergraduate degree in biology with a focus in biochemistry, and completed her medical degree at the University of Florida where she graduated Alpha Omega Alpha and with honors in research. During medical school, she completed the Howard Hughes Medical Institute-National Institutes of Health (HHMI-NIH) Research Scholars Program studying neuroimaging of impulse control disorders, including pathological gambling, compulsive sexual behavior, and shopping. She completed psychiatry residency at Harvard Medical School-Massachusetts General Hospital and McLean Hospital, where she served as chief resident in addiction, in addition to a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) funded T32 research fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry at Columbia University and New York State Psychiatric Institute. She is double board certified in addiction and adult psychiatry.

Kevin M. Gray, M.D., is a Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences and serves as Assistant Provost for Research Advancement at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). As a child and adolescent psychiatrist and physician-scientist co-leading the MUSC Youth Collaborative, he conducts National Institutes of Health supported clinical research, contributing novel advances to treatments for substance use disorders in adolescents and young adults. Dr. Gray serves on the Board of Directors for the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry, is Associate Editor of the Journal of Child and Adolescent Psychopharmacology, and is Principal Investigator of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry Physician Scientist Program in Substance Use. In addition to clinical, administrative, and research efforts, Dr. Gray is dedicated to education, providing didactic instruction across training programs and mentoring multiple early career faculty and trainees in clinical research.

John J. Mariani, MD is an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at the Columbia University Vagelos College of Physicians and Surgeons and a Research Psychiatrist at the New York State Psychiatric Institute (NYSPI). Dr. Mariani is the Director of the Substance Treatment and Research Service (STARS) in the Division on Substance Use Disorders at the NYSPI/Columbia University Irving Medical Center. Dr. Mariani attended the New York University School of Medicine, completed a psychiatry residency at the Beth Israel Medical Center/Albert Einstein College of Medicine, and an addiction psychiatry clinical and research fellowship at Columbia University Medical Center and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. He serves on the board of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry and is the medical advisor to the Major League Baseball Players Association. Dr. Mariani’s research is focused on the development of novel medication treatments for substance use disorders and related co-occurring psychiatric disorders. He has received grant funding from the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), as well as private foundations. Dr. Mariani has over 50 peer-reviewed scientific publications, in addition to a dozen book chapters on the treatment of substance use disorders.

Larissa Mooney, M.D. is a Professor of Clinical Psychiatry and Director of the Addiction Psychiatry Division in the Department of Psychiatry and Biobehavioral Sciences at UCLA. She is the Director of the UCLA-VA Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship Program and Deputy Chief of the Substance Use Disorders Subdivision at Greater Los Angeles VA. Dr. Mooney is the Immediate Past President of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP), a Distinguished Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association (APA), and a Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM). She is one of two Principal Investigators for the Greater Southern California Node of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network.

Dr. Rosenthal is Professor and Inaugural Director of Addiction Psychiatry at Renaissance School of Medicine at Stony Brook University. In that role, he oversees the delivery of addiction services for the Stony Brook Health system and is responsible for addiction-related clinical training for medical students, residents and practitioners. Over his career, he has been active in research, education, program development, treatment and public policy related to addiction. Since 2003, he has been the Head of Public Policy at the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry.

Dr. Rosenthal earned his master’s degree in physiology and pharmacology at Duke University, where he was the recipient of a National Institutes of Health Neurosciences Training Grant Award. He then earned his medical degree at State University of New York Downstate Medical Center and completed his residency in psychiatry at Mount Sinai Hospital, where he served as Chief Resident. After residency, he founded and directed the Addiction Psychiatry program at Beth Israel Medical Center, NY. More recently, he was chair of psychiatry 2001-2014 at the former St. Luke’s Roosevelt Medical Center, NY.

Dr. Rosenthal is a member of numerous professional societies and served as President of both the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry and the American Association for Technology in Psychiatry. He is a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association, and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry. He has published articles in many professional journals as well as numerous book chapters and books. He is also an Editor of the American Society of Addiction Medicine Principles of Addiction Medicine. In 2008, Dr. Rosenthal was the recipient of the Founders’ Award from the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry and has been selected for Castle Connolly America’s Top Doctors™ since 2008.

Dr. Sevarino earned his MD, CM at McGill Faculty of Medicine and PhD in molecular biology at the University of Connecticut Health Center. After an internship in Internal medicine, he trained in psychiatry in the dual clinical/basic research tract at the Yale University School of Medicine. For six years thereafter, he was PI on NIH grants examining neurobiological mechanisms underlying cocaine dependence, and since then has transitioned to being a clinician-educator who remained active in clinical research as a member of the MIRECC VA Team in studies examining new treatments for substance use disorders. He was Medical Director of the Newington Mental Health Care Firm, Connecticut VA Healthcare System from Dec. 2004 through Aug. 2017. He was consulting psychiatrist to Gaylord Hospital, Wallingford from 1999 – 2009, and again 2017-2023. He now works as per diem psychiatrist at Hartford Healthcare – Rushford. His particular expertise is in treatment of the dually-diagnosed and non-opiate pharmacological management of chronic pain. He is Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry, Yale University School of Medicine. He was subspecialty certified in Psychosomatic Medicine by the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology from 2009 – 2019, in Addiction Medicine by the American Board of Addiction Medicine from 2010 – 2020, and currently in Addiction Medicine by the American Board of Preventative Medicine. Dr. Sevarino serves as Medical Director for the American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry (AAAP), and is a past president of that organization. He was Course Director for the AAAP Board Review Course in Addictions, which developed into the Addictions and Their Treatment Course, from 2007 – 2015. He currently co-directs AAAP’s Advanced Addiction Psychopharmacology course.

Jill M. Williams, MD, is a Professor of Psychiatry and Director of the Division of Addiction Psychiatry at the Rutgers University-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School in New Brunswick. The focus of Dr. Williams work has been in addressing tobacco in individuals with mental illness or other addictions through treatment and systems interventions. She is Medical Director for the TCTTAC Program in NYC, in collaboration with Center for Practice Innovation at Columbia University. In 2015 she was the recipient of the Remarkable Achievement Award of the NJ Psychiatric Association. She is past Chair and member of the APA Council on Addiction Psychiatry.