AnC Leadership

Bettina Hoeppner PhD, MS

Core Lead, Contact PI

Dr. Hoeppner is an Associate Professor in Psychology at Harvard Medical School and core faculty of the Health Promotion and Resiliency Intervention Research (HPRIR) Center, a joint initiative between the MGH Mongan Institute and the MGH Department of Psychiatry to harness the strengths of interdisciplinary behavioral science delivery research. By training, Dr. Hoeppner is an experimental psychologist focused on substance use disorder research, with extensive training in statistics. Her PI-led research focuses on engagement with auxiliary addiction services (e.g., mutual help, recovery community centers (RCCs)), mHealth technologies, and smoking cessation. The broad aim of her program of research is to increase access to care. The type of ‘care’ she specializes in is the auxiliary support people can access outside of the formal treatment setting; care that can support and extend the care they receive in a hospital setting. To this end, she has taken two approaches: (1) her research examines, builds and tests mHealth approaches to support people as they transition away from substance use; and (2) her research elucidates mechanisms by which community resources (e.g., mutual help, recovery community centers) can be leveraged to support recovery from substance use disorder.

Dr. Hoeppner’s role within Mass-ENVISION is to provide guidance on statistics and research methods to RCMAR scholars. She brings to this role experience in providing statistical support to a wide range of studies. Both the treatment development and community-engaged focus of Mass-ENVISION align squarely with her own PI-led research (e.g., development of a smartphone app; network building project to advance the science on recovery community centers). Her mentoring occurs within the formal context of NIH-funded training programs and through ad hoc consultations across a wide variety of research programs within MGH and beyond. She is an active mentor through the Dana-Farber / UMass Boston CURE program. Within the MGH Psychiatry Department, she has advocated for and is now leading a new paid undergraduate internship program (2021-present).

Benjamin Cook PhD

Co-lead, Contact PI/ MPI

Dr. Cook is Director of the Health Evaluation Research Laboratory (HERLab) at Cambridge Health Alliance (CHA) and Contact PI/MPI of a P50 ALACRITY grant from NIH. He brings his mentoring expertise in guiding trainees with leveraging of claims and electronic health records analyses, big data cleaning, warehousing, and analysis, including merging of datasets across laboratory, services, and neighborhood levels, and statistical analysis and evaluations of digitally-delivered behavioral interventions. Through his work leading HERLab, he also has expertise in guiding learners with conceptualization and operationalization of rigorous empirical approaches for measuring disparities in access and quality to services and will assist RCMAR Scientists with these approaches in their ADRD behavioral health research. In addition to his extensive mentoring experience in his lab at CHA, Dr. Cook has an established track record of collaborative mentoring experience, having previously served together for nearly a decade with Mentor Dr. Margarita Alegria and Mass-ENVISION PI Dr. Okereke on the Harvard Medical School (HMS) Psychiatry Research Committee which oversees and monitors, through monthly meetings, the progress of dozens of trainees in 4 HMS-wide mentored fellowship programs for psychiatry residents, psychology interns, fellows and early-career faculty. He has received mentorship awards from NIDA-AACAP and HMS and awards for his work related to measuring disparities from AcademyHealth and NIMH.