Faculty Panel Q&A: Part 1 - 2021

Petros Levounis, MD, MA, DFASAM serves as professor and chair of the Department of Psychiatry and Associate Dean for Professional Development at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School. Dr. Levounis came to Rutgers from Columbia University where he served as director of the Addiction Institute of New York from 2002 to 2013.

Dr. Levounis is a Phi Beta Kappa graduate of Stanford University where he studied chemistry and biophysics before receiving his medical education at Stanford University School of Medicine and the Medical College of Pennsylvania. During medical school, he researched the effects of social class on patient-physician relationships in Oxford, England, and received an MA degree in sociology from Stanford. In 1994, he moved to New York City to train in psychiatry at the New York State Psychiatric Institute of Columbia University. He graduated from Columbia earning the National Institute of Mental Health Outstanding Resident Award and went on to complete his fellowship in addiction psychiatry at New York University.

Dr. Levounis has written numerous articles, monographs, and book chapters; has lectured extensively on addiction topics throughout the United States and abroad; and has been interviewed by CBS, ABC, NBC, CNN, FOX, The Martha Stewart Radio Show, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, among others.

Dr. Levounis has served on the boards of the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM) and the American Board of Addiction Medicine, and from 2005 to 2009 chaired the national Committee on Addiction Treatment of the American Psychiatric Association (APA). Dr. Levounis is a Betty Ford Scholar, a recipient of the Association of Gay and Lesbian Psychiatrists’ Distinguished Service Award and the ASAM Educator of the Year Award, and a distinguished fellow of the APA and ASAM. In 2017, he was elected as an honorary member of the World Psychiatric Association.

Dr. Levounis has published thirteen books including the self-help paperback “Sober Siblings: How to Help Your Alcoholic Brother or Sister—and Not Lose Yourself,” the textbook of “Substance Dependence and Co-Occurring Psychiatric Disorders,” “Motivational Interviewing for Clinical Practice,” “The Behavioral Addictions,” “Becoming Mindful,” “Pocket Guide to LGBTQ Mental Health,” and “Office-Based Buprenorphine Treatment of Opioid Use Disorder,” now in its second edition. Dr. Levounis is currently working on the first textbook of Technological Addictions. His books have been translated into French, German, Hungarian, Japanese, Portuguese, and Spanish. Dr. Levounis is married to actor Lukas Hassel and lives in New York City.

Ricardo Restrepo, MD, MPH finished his medical school in Medellín, Colombia. He then did his residency training in Psychiatry at Boston University Medical Center where he completed a fellowship in Addiction Psychiatry. He received an MPH in Global Public Health from NYU in 2008, while working at St Luke’s/Roosevelt Hospital, where he was Director of the Addiction Psychopharmacology Clinic at the Addiction Institute of New York. 

Since 2012, he works at the Long Beach VA Hospital, where he is the Medical Director of the SATP/Buprenorphine Clinic. Ricardo holds an academic position as Associate Clinical Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California (Irvine and Riverside) School of Medicine and most recently at the Charles Drew University, Los Angeles. He teaches and supervises students, psychiatry, family medicine and internal medicine residents. He serves as committee member of the American Academy of Addiction Medicine (AAAP) as well as on the California Society of Addiction Medicine (CSAM) Conference planning committee. 

 Ricardo's academic interests include the psychotherapy and psychopharmacology of addiction and the teaching of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine. He is actively involved in issues related to transcultural psychiatry and behavioral addictions. He has worked with immigrant populations in the United States for over 20 years. As a volunteer for Physicians for Human Rights (PHR), he has participated in projects in the United States, Latin America and the Middle East. He has served as a United Nations Consultant since 2005. 

Dr. Restrepo has written chapters on addiction and human rights textbooks. He is the co-author of textbooks on buprenorphine as well as women’s health and addiction, and he cooperated with the Translation of DSM-5 to Spanish. He is board re-certified in Psychiatry and Addiction Psychiatry and a professional musician.

Soteri Polydorou, MD is a practicing physician with board certifications in Addiction Medicine and Internal Medicine.  His involvement in the field of substance use disorder (SUD) treatment and education include serving as Medical Director of Addiction Services for Northwell Health and Associate Professor at the Zucker School of Medicine at Hofstra/Northwell.  Northwell Health is a regional health system of over 20 hospitals and nearly 800 outpatient facilities.  Dr. Polydorou is a member of various governmental and professional committees tasked with supporting the delivery and organization of addiction treatment.  Dr. Polydorou’s interests include public policy initiatives to address substance use disorders, optimizing access to SUD services within health systems, and implementation of innovative opioid use disorder treatments within various healthcare clinical settings.

Jonathan Avery, MD is currently the Director of Addiction Psychiatry and an Associate Professor of Clinical Psychiatry at Weill Cornell Medical College and New York-Presbyterian Hospital. In addition to his clinical work, Dr. Avery teaches addiction psychiatry to the Weill Cornell medical students and residents of New York-Presbyterian Hospital. He has been published on a broad variety of topics in psychiatry, including papers on subjects ranging from clinician attitudes towards patients to how to use buprenorphine. He is the founder of the Addiction Stigma Institute that studies stigma towards individuals with substance use disorders and creates novel interventions to improve these stigmatizing attitudes. He was on the editorial board for the DSM-5 Clinical Cases book and is the editor of the books Co-occurring Mental Illness and Substance Use Disorders: A Guide to Diagnosis and Treatment and The Stigma of Addiction: An Essential Guide. He has won numerous awards for his clinical and academic work, including the American Board of Psychiatry and Neurology Faculty Innovation in Education Award and the Outstanding Faculty Member Award from the New York County Psychiatric Society.

Carla Marienfeld, MD, is a board-certified addiction psychiatrist and Clinical Professor at the University of California, San Diego who supports recovery in an evidence based, harm-reduction approach through therapy, motivational interviewing, and medication treatment. Her research involves analysis of electronic medical record data for individuals with substance use disorders. She has authored or co-authored over 35 peer reviewed articles, book chapters, practice guidelines, and invited commentaries, and she edited two books: Motivational Interviewing for Clinical Practice and Absolute Addiction Psychiatry Review: An essential board exam study guide. She has been highly involved in education of colleagues and trainees about addiction psychiatry and effective interventions including buprenorphine treatment and motivational interviewing, and she is the fellowship director for the UCSD Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship. Dr. Marienfeld completed a fellowship in addiction psychiatry and residency training in psychiatry at Yale. During her residency, she was chief resident of psychiatry and founded (and later led) the Yale Global Mental Health Program. She earned a medical degree with honors from Baylor College of Medicine in Houston.

Michael H. Baumann, PhD is a Staff Scientist and Chief of the Designer Drug Research Unit (DDRU), at the Intramural Research Program (IRP) of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) in Baltimore, Maryland.  The DDRU collects, analyzes and disseminates the most up-to-date information about the pharmacology and toxicology of newly-emerging synthetic drugs of abuse (i.e., designer drugs), more formally known as new psychoactive substances (NPS).  Working with partner organizations such as the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA) and the National Drug Early Warning System (NDEWS), Dr. Baumann is kept informed about trends in the misuse of NPS.  The DDRU has characterized the molecular mechanism of action and pharmacological effects for a diversity of NPS, including “bath salts” (synthetic stimulants), “spice” (synthetic cannabinoids) and synthetic opioids.  Findings from the DDRU inform law enforcement personnel, health care workers, clinical toxicologists, forensic scientists, basic researchers, and policymakers who are involved in responding to the global spread of NPS and the associated public health risks. 

Abigail J. Herron, DO, is the Vice President of Behavioral Health and the Director of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine at the Institute for Family Health. She is board certified in adult psychiatry, addiction psychiatry and addiction medicine, and is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry and Family Medicine at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mt. Sinai. Dr. Herron is a fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and a Distinguished Fellow of the American Society of Addiction Medicine. She graduated from Wesleyan University and the University of Medicine and Dentistry of New Jersey School of Osteopathic Medicine. Dr. Herron completed her psychiatry residency at St. Luke's and Roosevelt Hospitals, where she was also chief resident, and a clinical research fellowship in addiction psychiatry at Columbia University and the New York State Psychiatric Institute. Her academic interests include integrated care, women’s health, and medical education. She is the co-editor of the Addiction Casebook, and the editor-in-chief of ASAM’s Essentials of Addiction Medicine. Dr. Herron is also in private practice in New York.

Disclosures - None

Erin Zerbo, MD, received her B.S. in Brain and Cognitive Sciences from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 2003, and her M.D. from New York University School of Medicine in 2007. She remained at NYU for a general psychiatry residency and a one-year addiction psychiatry fellowship, graduating in 2012. Since 2014, she has been an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers New Jersey Medical School and the Associate Director of Medical Student Education in Psychiatry. In addition to managing a large buprenorphine practice dedicated to Newark residents, she is also the director of the Northern New Jersey Center of Excellence in Medication-Assisted Treatment, a new statewide opioid training and education initiative. Dr. Zerbo serves as the co-Chair of the Council on Education of the New Jersey Psychiatric Association, and she has published and lectured extensively in the field of addiction. Her primary interest is the treatment of substance use disorders in underserved and disadvantaged populations. She is a co-editor of the book "Pocket Guide to Addiction Assessment and Treatment" (APA, 2106), and the lead editor of "Becoming Mindful: Integrating Mindfulness into Your Psychiatric Practice" (APA, 2017).

Disclosures - None