About me
Dr. Svikis (moderator) is a Professor in the Departments of Psychology, Psychiatry and Obstetrics/Gynecology at Virginia Commonwealth University (VCU). In addition, she serves as Director for the VCU Addiction and Women’s Health (AWHARE) Program; Deputy Director, VCU Institute for Women’s Health; and Co-Director of the International Programme in Addiction Studies. She has been involved in addiction research and evaluation for > 30 years, with expertise in identification and treatment of opioid and other substance use disorders across a variety of medical and community-based settings. She is particularly interested in use of technology to deliver evidence-based interventions (e.g., Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT4CBT); Contingency Management (CM)) either alone or as adjuncts to SUD treatment. She is experienced in health disparities research, including a CDC project focused on improving maternal/infant outcomes for black women with an intervention that combined health navigation and CM. She has collaborated on development and implementation of a variety of SUD counselor training programs; several included cultural adaptation and tailoring to meet needs of racial/ethnic minority groups and vulnerable populations (e.g., MI training for relapse prevention project in Mizoram, India). As an experienced investigator, she has served as PI/MPI on 8 federal grants and Co-I on many others and she is skilled in treatment program evaluation across a range of community and hospital-based settings. For 20 years she was a member of the Mid-Atlantic Node of the NIDA Clinical Trials Network and directed or contributed to multi-site clinical trials taking place in SUD treatment programs and primary care clinics across the country. She has worked with Addiction Technology Transfer Centers (ATTCs) on training and dissemination of evidence-based practices such as SBIRT, medication-assisted therapies, motivational interviewing, and contingency management to clinicians and counselors across the spectrum. She has worked with Faces and Voices of Recovery on a GWAS study of severe AUD and is a Fulbright Specialist who regularly advises international scholars through the VCU Humphrey Fulbright Fellowship Program.
