Fall 2018 Editor's Corner

Hi all!

I am honored to serve as the incoming editor of The Addictions Newsletter. I am an Associate Professor in the School of Public Health at the University of North Texas Health Science Center. I completed my PhD in Applied Social Psychology at The George Washington University in 2010, completed a T32 Postdoctoral Fellowship under Mary Larimer at the University of Washington in 2012, and served as faculty in the Center for the Study of Health and Risk Behavior at the University of Washington from 2012-2017. My overarching research interests are related to the etiology and prevention of adolescent and young adult substance use and have centered around the role of reactive decision-making as well as both offline and online (i.e. social media) social influences on decision-making.

My goal as the TAN editor is to bring you the familiar columns and announcements that you have come to expect, but also to introduce several new columns to appeal to a diverse group of readers.  As mentioned in the President’s Column, several changes are coming to TAN and we hope you are excited as we are.  First, in addition to the traditional PDF format of TAN, we will now house all the content online as part of The SoAP Box.  The SoAP Box will contain the same articles as the PDF version of the TAN, but the online format will allow people to search for and interact with individual articles.  Our goal is to make TAN more relevant and exciting for all and to provide information that is both useful and interesting. To this end, I am planning on introducing several new columns to upcoming issues including “SoAP Box Sound Bites”, a place for people to sound off on particular topics, “Show and Tell”, a column where people can share information about their research labs and current projects, “Community Corner”, where people can share ways in which they are currently working with or engaged in their local communities, and “Finding Success in Failures” where members will share some of what they learned and how they overcame less-than-successful aspects of their professional careers.  In addition, with our move to being web-based, we can now also integrate fun features like polls which will allow us to get an idea of how other members feel about hot topics.  In addition, because The SoAP Box will be housed online, we have the capability of quickly posting and disseminating important information in between TAN issues.

This current issue includes updates on both the Collaborative Perspectives on Addiction Conference as well as Division Programming and Travel Awards for APA. Attending these conferences is a great way to not only share your work but to learn about ways to get involved in our division. Related, this issue also includes information about the upcoming SoAP elections and Call for Nominations of Fellows and Awards 2019.  In addition, Nancy Piotrowski has included her regular Advocate’s Alcove Column where she covers the most recent legislative news, and in particular updates related to opioids. This issue also includes a request for comment, a research brief by Paul Candon, an ECP profile of Dr. Angela Broadus, Clinical Pearls from our very own Paul Stasiewicz and information from our newly formed Outreach Committee. 

For the next issue, I am hoping to solicit some of the new content that I mentioned above.  We really do want to hear from you!  Please submit any of the content requested below to me (dana.litt@unthsc.edu) by February 1, 2019.

-SoAP Box Sound Bites. In 50 words or less, please respond to the following prompt—“What do you think is the most important issue facing addictions researchers today?”

-Show and Tell.  This is the place to show off your research labs and highlight the cool ways in which you promote your lab (websites, Facebook pages, Instagram accounts, etc.) as well as the important work you are doing.  Send us a link and description of your lab branding, current projects or media attention you may have received, and any other information that you would like to share with our readers. Please limit responses to 200 words.

-Community Corner.  For the coming issue, I want to hear what our members see as their role in our communities. Please limit responses to 200 words.

-Finding Success in Failure.  In line with the recent trend of prominent academics sharing their “CVs of Failures”, we want to hear about a time in your career that things didn’t go your way.  For this next issue, if you are willing to share, has there been a time when you didn’t get a job that you really wanted?  If so, how did you overcome the disappointment and what did you learn from this experience and what would you recommend to other members going on the job market? Please limit responses to 500 words.

If you have any suggestions for how we can make TAN more relevant and impactful for you, please don’t hesitate to let me know. Wanting to see articles on a specific topic? Send your topic ideas to me for upcoming issues. I am open to ideas for new columns, hot topics to cover, or anything else you think would be useful as I embark on this editorship along with all of you. 

Thank you all in advance for your support as we fully transition TAN into the digital age!