Research Opportunities

Joseph McNamara, PhD

  • Research Area: Treatment of Anxiety Disorders, Sleep, Executive functioning, & treatment adherence. Specifically we are interested in the interaction of 4 areas listed.
  • Study topics include: We are doing a study looking at treatment outcomes with both children and adults who have OCD. During the course of this study, we are collecting information on sleep and treatment adherence. We are also conducting studies on pediatric sleep and OCD symptom severity, pilot testing a live coding system for exposure therapy, and executive functioning.
  • Interested students should: Please send resumes to jpm2@ufl.edu

Mark H. Lewis, Ph.D.

  • Research Area: Animal Models of Restricted Repetitive Behavior in Autism
  • Study topics include: Behavioral and neurobiological studies of the development and expression of abnormal repetitive behavior in deer mice and inbred mouse strains.
  • Interested students should: e-mail Dr. Lewis at marklewis@ufl.edu indicating their interest and background.

Lisa J. Merlo, Ph.D.

  • Research Area: Public Health Research in Addictions
  • Study topics include: Psychosocial factors associated with substance use among adolescents/young adults, Impaired healthcare professionals, Behavioral addictions
  • Interested students should: Send a letter of interest and updated CV to Dr. Merlo at lmerlo@ufl.edu.

Sara Jo Nixon, Ph.D.

  • Research Area: Neurobehavioral factors associated with acute and chronic substance use, age and gender; neurobehavioral stability in degenerative disease
  • Study topics include: Age and gender differences in the effects of non-intoxicating levels of alcohol consumption; Potential therapeutics to enhance nicotine cessation efforts; developing more effective technology for tracking recent drug use; longitudinal neurophysiological testing of individuals with CLA.
  • Interested students should: Send a letter of interest including details of prior research experience and educational goals to Dr. Nixon at sjnixon@ufl.edu.

Barry Setlow, PhD

  • Research Area: Neuroscience research on interactions between addiction and decision-making
  • Study topics include: effects of drugs of abuse on cognition and motivation, behavioral and neurobiological factors that predict drug self-administration, neurobiological mechanisms of decision-making
  • Interested students should: send a letter describing their interests, experience, and educational goals to Dr. Setlow at setlow@ufl.edu