Dr. Karen Alexander Receives Promotion to Senior Research Scientist

FRI is pleased to announce that Dr. Karen Alexander has been promoted from Research Scientist to Senior Research Scientist, effective September 20, 2024. Dr. Alexander joined FRI in August of 2021. Since that time, she has served as a Principal Investigator (PI) or a Multiple Principal Investigator (MPI) on a number of studies conducted at FRI. Initially, she served as the site PI for a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network funded study entitled “Subthreshold Opioid Use Disorder Prevention (STOP) Trial,” which was designed to prevent opioid use disorder among at-risk patients in primary care. She also served as an MPI on National Institute on Aging (NIA) funded study entitled “Mindfulness based stress reduction application for African American caregivers,” which was designed to develop a prototype mobile app for African American caregivers of people living with HIV/AIDS to reduce caregiver stress, depression, and anxiety. Currently, she serves as a PI on a NIDA funded study entitled “Treating polysubstance use in methadone maintenance: Application of novel digital technology,” which will examine the use of a digital contingency management delivery tool for people with opioid and cocaine polysubstance use receiving methadone treatment. She also serves as an MPI on a NIDA funded study through the HEAL initiative entitled “Implementing a patient navigation intervention across a health system to address treatment entry inequities,” which will study the implementation and clinical outcomes of the Navigation Services to Avoid Rehospitalization (NavSTAR) intervention in four Jefferson Health hospitals in Philadelphia. In addition, she serves as an MPI on a NIA funded study entitled “Mindfulness based stress reduction app for African American caregivers,” which seeks to enhance and finalize the development of a prototype mindfulness-based mobile app and evaluate its effectiveness in a randomized controlled trial.

FRI would like to congratulate Dr. Alexander on these notable achievements and wishes her continued success in her research career at FRI.