My research asks how biological state shapes substance use vulnerability, behavior, and recovery. I approach this question across levels of analysis, from hormone-sensitive neural mechanisms to patient-level clinical data.
A central goal of my work is to understand why risk and recovery change across people and across time. I am especially interested in ovarian hormones, reproductive aging, metabolic health, stress, resilience, and the clinical contexts in which recovery occurs.
01. Hormonal transitions and women’s brain health
My doctoral work examined how ovarian hormones, particularly estradiol, interact with L-type calcium channel signaling during cocaine abstinence. Using preclinical models, I studied cue-induced cocaine seeking, anxiety-like behavior, and social behavior to understand how hormone-sensitive mechanisms influence addiction-related outcomes.
That work now informs a broader translational question: how do reproductive transitions alter addiction vulnerability and recovery in women?
I am particularly interested in the menopause transition because it brings simultaneous changes in ovarian hormones, metabolism, sleep, mood, and cardiometabolic health. Studying these systems together may help explain why addiction-related risk and treatment response vary across reproductive stages.
Current and emerging questions include:
- How do reproductive-aging processes relate to social withdrawal, stress, craving, and substance use severity?
- Can reproductive aging be modeled as a continuum rather than a single categorical stage?
- How do hormonal and metabolic changes interact with brain and behavioral markers of vulnerability?
- Which features distinguish risk from resilience during reproductive transitions?
02. Addiction, resilience, and recovery
I study addiction as more than drug reinforcement alone. Social connection, stress, affective state, and resilience can all influence whether vulnerability escalates or recovery is sustained.
My work on social withdrawal during cocaine abstinence led me to think more broadly about social behavior as a clinically meaningful dimension of addiction. Social withdrawal may reduce access to positive reinforcement, increase perceived stress, and interact with hormonal state in ways that affect relapse vulnerability.
In my current postdoctoral work at the University of Utah, I am also contributing to the development and validation of a new psychometric measure of psychological resilience in adults. This work is expanding my training in human subjects research, measurement science, and quantitative clinical research.
Across these projects, I am interested in distinguishing resilience from the simple absence of a poor outcome. Meaningful resilience measurement requires attention to the level of adversity or risk to which a person has actually been exposed.
03. Clinical data science
I use clinical data to study recovery in medically complex populations with substance use disorders.
Using OMOP-formatted electronic health record data, I examine how demographic, metabolic, and acute clinical factors relate to poor outcomes among hospitalized adults with substance use disorders. I am especially interested in metabolic dysfunction, including type 2 diabetes and obesity, as a potentially important but understudied component of addiction-related recovery.
My goal is not simply to maximize predictive accuracy. I am interested in models that are:
- clinically interpretable,
- appropriately calibrated,
- transparent about uncertainty,
- sensitive to sex and biological context, and
- useful for identifying modifiable pathways to poor recovery.
This work connects addiction science with cardiometabolic health, clinical informatics, and precision approaches to recovery.
Current projects
Resilience instrument development and validation
Development and psychometric validation of a new measure of psychological resilience in adults, combining participant-based research with quantitative measurement approaches.
Clinical risk prediction in hospitalized adults with substance use disorders
Clinical prediction modeling using harmonized electronic health record data to identify factors associated with poor recovery, with particular interest in metabolic dysfunction and sex-related heterogeneity.
Reproductive aging and addiction vulnerability
An emerging research direction examining how reproductive-aging biology, menopausal symptoms, social and stress-related processes, and addiction outcomes may interact across midlife.
Training and approach
I earned my PhD in the Interdepartmental Neuroscience Program at Yale University, where I trained in behavioral neuroscience, neuroendocrinology, and addiction biology. My broader research experience also includes genomics, computational biology, single-cell analysis, statistics, and clinical prediction modeling.
This interdisciplinary training allows me to move between mechanistic neuroscience and patient-oriented quantitative research while keeping the same core question in view:
How do changing biological states shape vulnerability, behavior, and recovery?
For publications and current scholarly work, see my Publications page or CV.