About Our Team

Investigators

David Jernigan

David Jernigan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health, and senior policy advisor to CityHealth, an initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanente. He previously directed the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) and was an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health. He is a member of the Cannabis Advertising and Social Media (CASM) research group, an advisor to the Maryland Collaborative to Reduce College Drinking and Related Problems, a member of the steering committee of the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health, and scientific chair of the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance. He has served as an advisor to the World Health Organization and the World Bank, and has written more than 140 peer-reviewed journal articles and contributed chapters to seven books on alcohol issues. He started his career as an actor, singer, dancer and stage manager in Boston theater.

Pamela Trangenstein

Dr. Pamela Trangenstein is a Scientist in the Alcohol Research Group at the Public Health Institute. Her research focuses on methods to more closely link scientific results with policy and programmatic decision-making and policies that can promote equity. She is a member of the Cannabis Advertising and Social Media research group, a member of the steering committee of the Global Information System on Alcohol and Health, and an Assistant Field Editor for the Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs. The Kettil Bruun Society for Social and Epidemiological Research on Alcohol awarded Dr. Trangenstein the Ole-Jørgen Skog Award for the best paper by an early career alcohol epidemiologist in 2018. She received her MPH and PhD from the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and BA from Washington University in St. Louis. Dr. Trangenstein is also a visual artist with minors in printmaking and photography.

Timothy Naimi

Timothy Naimi MD, MPH is currently the Director at the Canadian Institute for Substance Use Research. He received his bachelor’s degree from Harvard College, his M.D. degree from the University of Massachusetts, and his M.P.H degree from the Harvard School of Public Health. He completed a combined internal medicine-pediatrics residency program at Massachusetts General Hospital, the Epidemic Intelligence Service program with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), and a Preventive Medicine Residency with CDC. He has worked as a physician for the U.S. Indian Health Service, and as a senior epidemiologist with the Alcohol Team at CDC, and a professor in the Boston University Schools of Public Health and Medicine. His research interests include alcohol epidemiology, the health effects of substance use, and the impact of alcohol and cannabis policies.

Sarah Lipson

Sarah Ketchen Lipson (she/her) is an assistant professor in the Department of Health Law Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public Health. Her research, originally inspired by her years working in residential life, focuses on understanding and addressing mental health and disparities therein within higher education. She is Principal Investigator of the Healthy Minds Network. This includes the Network’s national Healthy Minds Study, an annual mental health survey conducted at hundreds of colleges and universities each year. Sarah’s research has been funded the National Institute of Mental Health and William T. Grant Foundation, among others. Her work has been featured in the New York Times, Boston Globe, Huffington Post, on NPR, and in numerous other national and international media outlets. Sarah completed a dual-PhD at University of Michigan in the Schools of Public Health and Education. She received her bachelor’s degree from Tufts University, her master’s from Harvard University, and was a Fulbright scholar.Sarah teaches a range of graduate-level courses at the Boston University School of Public Health.

Ziming Xuan

Dr. Ziming Xuan is a Professor in the Department of Community Health Sciences and the Department of Epidemiology at the Boston University School of Public Health. He is a faculty member of the Primary Care Academic Fellowship Program, and a faculty member of the Transformative Training Program in Addiction Science (TTPAS) at Boston University School of Medicine. He is a faculty member of the Injury Prevention Center, and a member of the Health Equity Accelerator at Boston Medical Center. He is a social epidemiologist who is interested in understanding the influence of social-contextual determinants, especially policy determinants on health, particularly among vulnerable populations (i.e., youth, patients with substance abuse, and women). He is also interested in the methodologies involved in social- behavioral interventions to promote healthy behavioral changes and enhance community well-being. His research interests include health policies related to alcohol, marijuana, other substance use and guns, youth health, alcohol advertising, impaired driving, substance use disorders, mental health and addiction.

Study Team

Patrick Tiongson

Patrick is a graduate of the MPH program at Boston University School of Public Health, with a concentration in epidemiology, biostatistics, and community health sciences. Patrick is an experienced HIV test counselor and disease investigation specialist in California. He has worked as research staff for substance use treatment research studies, conducting both qualitative and quantitative data analysis. Patrick is looking to go back to school for his doctorate in clinical health psychology. His interests are in psychiatric epidemiology, chronic social and traumatic stress, and the development of support interventions for providers of patients with serious and/or terminal medical illness. Patrick dreams one day of sharing his home with a rescue pitbull and a Welsh corgi.