John P. McGovern Award for Excellence in Medical Education
Regina LaBelle, JD
Regina LaBelle is a distinguished scholar and director of the Center on Addiction Policy at the O’Neill Institute for National and Global Health Law at Georgetown University Law Center. She is also a member of the faculty at Georgetown University’s Graduate School of Arts and Sciences, where she directs the Master of Science in Addiction Policy and Practice program, a program she founded in 2021. Regina has a history of public service, including in the Biden and Obama Administrations in the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP). At ONDCP, Regina was appointed Acting Director in the first year of the Biden Administration. Under President Obama, Regina served as Chief of Staff at ONDCP where she managed the agency’s response to the overdose epidemic and the implementation of the National Drug Control Strategy.
Regina earned her J.D. from Georgetown University Law Center and B.A. magna cum laude from Boston College. She serves on the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse at the National Institutes of Health.
Betty Ford Award
Cara Anne Poland, MD, M.Ed, FACP, DFASAM
Dr. Cara Poland is a recognized expert in addiction medicine. She is a faculty member at Michigan State University. She earned her medical degree from Wayne State University and was trained in internal medicine at St. Joseph Mercy Hospital in Ann Arbor, Michigan, and addiction medicine at Boston Medical Center in Boston, Massachusetts. She received her master’s degree in education from Boston University. Her work centers around educating healthcare providers and providers-in-training to improve care for patients with substance use disorders.
In 2018, board-certified Addiction Medicine Doctor Cara Poland identified the need to strengthen our country’s Addiction Medicine workforce. MI CARES was born by utilizing State Opioid Response funds and creating collaboration among Michigan’s medical schools. Led by Dr. Poland, MI CARES trains physician-level addiction specialists in Michigan and across the country. Over 1,000 physicians in all 50 states, Washington DC, and Puerto Rico are currently on the pathway to becoming board-certified in Addiction Medicine. The program also teaches physicians-in-training, resident physicians, social work students, social work practitioners, APRN, and PA practitioners. Her didactic program involves purposeful education to train prescribers to treat persons with SUDs in a kind, compassionate, destigmatized way. Dr. Poland also has a special interest in treating families affected by substance use disorders.
W. Anderson Spickard, Jr. Excellence in Mentorship Award
Carol J. Boyd, PhD, MSN, RN, FIANN, FAAN
Carol J. Boyd, PhD, MSN, RN, FIANN, FAAN is the Deborah J Oakley Emerita Professor of Nursing, Emerita Professor of Women’s Studies and an Emerita Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. Dr. Boyd is an internationally recognized substance abuse scholar and the and founding director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan. She was the Director of the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center from 1995-2004 and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women & Gender from 2005-2011.
Dr. Boyd has a long-standing interest in substance use, dating back to the late 1970’s. She has been the principal investigator on extramural research with racial/ethnic minority heroin users and crack smokers (1989-1995, NIH), women cigarette smokers (1997-2000, Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), prisoners (1999-2004, Michigan Department of Corrections and Robert Wood Johnson Foundation), adolescents and college students use of alcohol/drugs (2003-2022, NIH), and sexual minorities (2007-2021, NIH). In 1999, she was the first researcher as a principal investigator to develop a web-based survey, Student Life Survey (SLS), examining alcohol, tobacco and prescription drug abuse, this work led to five NIH funded studies from school-based samples. Most recently, Dr. Boyd was principal investigator of an NIH study of e-cigarette use among adolescents and another NIH study to examine substance use disorders among sexual minorities.
Dr. Boyd publishes extensively in health and interdisciplinary journals including in Addictive Behaviors, Journal of Addictive Diseases, Journal of Adolescent Health, Pediatrics, and Archives of Adolescent and Pediatric Medicine.
New Investigator Award
Nicholas Chadi, MD, MPH
Nicholas Chadi, MD MPH, is a pediatrician specialized in Adolescent and Addiction medicine. He is currently an Associate Professor at the University of Montreal as well as a Clinical Research Scholar with the Fonds de recherche du Québec (Santé). Dr. Chadi obtained his medical degree at McGill University, completed a fellowship in Global Journalism at the University of Toronto, earned a Master of Public Health at Harvard and was Boston Children’s Hospital’s Inaugural Pediatric Addiction Medicine Fellow in 2017-2019. Dr. Chadi is the director of the pediatric substance use and addiction program at Sainte-Justine University Hospital Centre. He has developed several inpatient protocols for substance use withdrawal and built a provincial training and consultation system for adolescent substance use treatment. His research focuses primarily on the prevention and treatment of adolescent substance use, specifically tobacco, nicotine vaping and cannabis. He is co-PI on a national surveillance study on acute toxicity from opioids, sedatives and stimulants as well as co-PI for a large Canadian Institutes of Healthcare Research-supported randomized control smoking cessation trial addressing unmet social needs. A strong advocate for child and youth mental health and wellbeing, Dr. Chadi has given several hundred lay media radio and broadcast interviews and is currently a member of the Health Canada expert advisory committee on vaping products. Dr. Chadi is the founder and leader of the AMERSA Pediatric and Adolescent Special Interest group, and lead author of the American Academy of Pediatrics clinical report on nonmedical use of controlled medications as well as of the Canadian Paediatric Society and Society for Adolescent Health and Medicine position statements on youth vaping.
David C. Lewis, MD Service to AMERSA Award
Elizabeth M. Pace, BSN, MSM, RN, FAAN
Elizabeth M. Pace is the Co-Founder and Chief Executive Officer of Peer Assistance Services, Inc., an organization she established in 1984 (formerly N.U.R.S.E.S. of Colorado Corporation) to provide a “peer employee assistance program by and for nurses” and other healthcare professionals struggling with substance use and mental health concerns. With four decades of dedicated leadership, Elizabeth has pioneered the development of peer health assistance programs that have become models nationwide for supporting healthcare professionals while protecting public safety.
As a long-standing member of the Association for Multidisciplinary Education and Research in Substance use and Addiction (AMERSA) since 2006, she has made significant contributions to the field, including serving on AMERSA’s Board of Directors from 2017-2019. Her research and publications, particularly focused on peer assistance programs for nurses and healthcare professionals, have advanced our understanding of effective intervention and support strategies. Selected publications include “Experiences and outcomes of nurses referred to a peer health assistance program: Recommendations for nursing management” (2019) and “American Academy of Nursing Expert Panel Consensus Statement on leveraging equity in policy to improve recognition and treatment of mental health, substance use disorders, and nurse suicide.” (2023)
She has successfully secured and managed numerous substantial federal grants, including two consecutive SAMHSA awards for Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (SBIRT) programming, totaling over $20 million. Under her leadership, Peer Assistance Services has expanded peer health programming to support multiple healthcare professions including nursing, dental, pharmacy, veterinary, and mental health providers through licensee-funded statutory peer health programs.
In 2025, Elizabeth was selected for the Excellence in Nursing Luminary Award from the Colorado Nurses Foundation. In 2015, Elizabeth was inducted as a Fellow into the American Academy of Nursing, recognizing her exceptional contributions to the profession. Her decades of service have also been acknowledged with other honors, including the Lifetime Achievement Award from the International Employee Assistance Professionals Association (2010) and the President’s Award for Outstanding Contribution and Service in Addictions Nursing from the International Nurses Society on Addictions (2009).
Beyond her professional accomplishments, she is well-known within the AMERSA community for her enthusiastic participation in and support of the organization’s auction events, bringing warmth and collegiality to these gatherings.
Marianne Marcus Nursing Award
Maria Quinn, MSN, PMHNP-BC
Maria Quinn is a Psychiatric Nurse Practitioner passionate about providing compassionate, culturally sensitive care for individuals facing challenges with substance use and mental health. As Director of Addiction Treatment and Recovery Support at Holyoke Medical Center, she had led innovative service expansion efforts to make addiction treatment and harm reduction services, more accessible in the hospital setting. A proud advocate for health equity, Maria also serves on boards dedicated to improving addiction care across Massachusetts.
Workshop Winners
2024 Best Workshop Award (awarded to a workshop presented at the 2024 conference)
Each year, AMERSA’s annual conference is enriched by our colleagues who share their work and expertise through workshop presentations. Workshops are designed to be longer than a didactic or research abstract presentation, specifically so that presenters can innovate with teaching methods, and participants have the opportunity to develop and practice new skills to utilize in their workplaces. We feel very fortunate to have so many people each year willing to invest their time and energy in bringing workshop presentations to the program!
The “Best Workshop” award is determined each year based on participant reviews. Congratulations to the winners of AMERSA’s 2024 Best Workshop award:
Bugs, Drugs, and Harm Reduction: Skills for Optimizing Antibiotic Therapy in People Who Use Drugs
Ayesha Appa, MD
Dr. Ayesha Appa is an Assistant Professor of Medicine at UCSF and a clinician investigator trained in both Addiction Medicine and Infectious Diseases. Her research focuses on integrating care for substance use disorders and HIV/serious infections, and she directs a low-barrier, status-neutral clinic for people who use drugs within San Francisco General Hospital’s Ward 86 clinic.
Amelia Goff, NP
Amelia Goff is a nurse practitioner in the section of addiction medicine at Oregon Health & Science University in Portland, Oregon. Her interests include improving healthcare systems to increase access to evidenced-based addiction care, including integration of harm reduction education and overdose prevention services. When not working, you can usually find her outside planting and tending to flowers.
L. Madeline McCrary, MD
Madeline McCrary is a dual-trained infectious diseases and addiction medicine physician at the Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, Missouri. She works primarily with patients with infectious complications of substance use and is passionate about expanding access to Hepatitis C treatment.
Kate Roberts
Kate Roberts is a doctoral candidate in social work at Bryn Mawr College, a Deputy Director in Behavioral Health Policy at Aurrera Health Group and a visiting researcher at UNC-Chapel Hill and the Centre for Drug Policy Evaluation. Her research focuses on harm reduction, feminist care ethics, and the socio-structural dimensions of drug policy. She brings over a decade of experience in psychotherapy and public policy to her work advancing equitable, community-driven approaches to substance use care.
Amanda Roy, PharmD, BCIDP, AAHIVP
Dr. Amanda Roy is an infectious disease and antimicrobial stewardship clinical pharmacist at Zuckerberg San Francisco General. She is passionate about teaching, precepting, and helping providers optimize antimicrobial use.
Dr. Kinna Thakarar, FIDSA, FASAM
Dr. Thakarar is an Associate Professor of Medicine at MaineHealth/Tufts University School of Medicine (TUSM) and is board-certified in infectious disease, addiction medicine, and internal medicine. Her clinical and research interests include the infectious disease and substance use syndemic, particularly harm reduction, shared decision making and community-based work.