Howard Shaffer is an associate professor at Harvard Medical School and director of the Division on Addictions. He has written extensively about the treatment of addictive behaviors and the nature of addictions.

Dr. Richard Saitz is a professor of medicine and epidemiology at Boston University’s School of Medicine, associate director of the Youth Alcohol Prevention Center and director of the Clinical Addiction Research and Education program. He studies the effectiveness of a brief, hospital-based tailored intervention for patients with alcohol problems.

Alexandre Laudet is a social psychologist and the director of the Center for the Study of Addictions and Recovery at the New York City-based National Development and Research Institutes. NDRI, a nongovernmental research agency, works to advance scientific knowledge of substance abuse, mental health, HIV/AIDS and related social and health concerns in order to contribute […]

Christopher D. Ringwald was a journalist in Albany, N.Y., and the author of The Soul of Recovery: Uncovering the Spiritual Dimension in the Treatment of Addictions (Oxford University Press, 2002). Ringwald studied and wrote about how the use of spirituality within a wide range of treatment options works. He also examined the controversies surrounding the faith-based treatment […]

Kevin Chen is a professor of addiction psychiatry at the Robert Wood Johnson Medical School at the University of Medicine and Dentistry in Piscataway, N.J. Dr. Chen additionally studies adolescent substance abuse and conducts studies investigating the feasibility and efficacy of Chinese energy therapy and meditation as a treatment.

Gerard Connors is director of the Research Institute on Addictions at the State University of New York at Buffalo. He has studied Alcoholics Anonymous participation, spirituality and alcohol outcomes.

Margaret Ensminger is a professor and associate chairwoman of the department of health, behavior and society at Johns Hopkins’ Bloomberg School of Public Health in Baltimore. She has studied inner-city youths and families and has done research on the effect of family religiosity on young adults’ alcohol use.

Jon Meacham is a Pulitzer Prize-winning author and is executive editor and executive vice president at Random House. His books include American Gospel: God, the Founding Fathers and the Making of a Nation. Contact Barbara Fillon at Random House.

Teresa Morrow is vice president for external relations and marketing with the Minneapolis Foundation which works on various community issues including immigration.