Hello future fellows! I’m so excited to work alongside you and support your journey in addiction medicine. Here’s a little about me and what brings me to this work.

I earned my doctorate in Counselor Education and Clinical Supervision from the University of North Carolina at Charlotte. I’m a licensed professional counselor, certified addiction counselor and certified clinical supervisor, and I’ve spent the past 20 years working with individuals with co-occurring disorders across a full continuum of care.

In 2025, I had the honor of innovating and editing a textbook with Springer [Publishing] titled “Equipping the Interdisciplinary Workforce to Treat Substance Use Disorders and Behavioral Health: Reducing the Stigma.” This project highlighted the incredible work of many clinicians from our department of family medicine.

I also serve on the advisory council to Pennsylvania’s Drug and Alcohol Programs secretary and governor, helping shape policy and practice across the state.

Before joining Lehigh Valley Health Network, I spent seven years in academia as an assistant professor, where I taught behavioral health and addiction counseling to nursing, medical and behavioral health students. During that time, I developed and launched a Master of Science in Addiction Counseling and led several behavioral health and addiction counseling programs and certificates.

Earlier in my career, I worked as a clinician in addiction treatment for eight years. I’ve also contributed nationally as a faculty and committee member with the American Society of Addiction Medicine (ASAM), including work on the Fundamentals of Addiction Medicine curriculum and the fourth edition of the ASAM Criteria, where I co-authored the chapter on co-occurring capability. I’ve served as faculty for numerous Project ECHO initiatives at the local, state and national levels.

My research interests include:

• Opioid intervention and prevention
• Low-barrier, addiction-focused behavioral integration
• Clinician burnout and job satisfaction
• Best practices in substance use disorder (SUD) care
• Clinician and staff attitudes toward treating patients with SUDs
• Behavioral health training and education models
• Family medicine, behavioral health and mental wellness training

On a personal note, I’ve been practicing yoga and meditation for more than 20 years and completed a 200-hour yoga teacher training. I also love juicing and gifting juices to friends and colleagues. My husband Craig and I have two energetic boys, Michael and Leo, and in our free time we love to be wild, athletic and adventurous together.