Alicia Allen, PhD, MPH, began working in clinical research on substance use disorders in 2001 as an undergraduate student. This experience prompted her to obtain her masters in community health education, graduate certification in addiction studies and doctorate in social and behavioral epidemiology, all from the University of Minnesota.  She also completed a fellowship at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention in the area of prenatal smoking. As a behavioral epidemiologist, she is particularly interested in research study design and evaluating causality.  She has conducted randomized clinical trials, controlled cross-over trials, and cross-sectional online surveys, as well as analyzed data from large epidemiological datasets. Dr. Allen's current research focuses on topics that occur in the intersection between substance misuse (e.g., nicotine/tobacco, cannabis, opioids) and women's health (e.g., pregnancy, postpartum, hormonal contraceptive use).  Alicia has received funding from the National Institutes of Health, ClearWay Minnesota, and University of Arizona. She has published over 45 peer-reviewed manuscripts to-date, primarily with Addictive Behaviors, Nicotine and Tobacco Research, Addiction, and Journal of Addiction Medicine.  She is an associate editor with Nicotine Tobacco Research (NTR), the clinical director with Society for Research on Nicotine Tobacco University (SRNT-U), and co-director of the Resident Scholarly Project Program (RSPP). In 2020, Dr. Allen received the prestigious National Institutes of Health’ New Innovator Award to explore how postpartum hormones influence relapse to opioids.

2020-2021 Courses:

• FCM 301 – Substance Misuse in Maternal and Child Health (MCH) Populations
• FCM 496A/596A – Advancements in Substance Misuse Research and Clinical Care Seminar

Current Projects as Principal Investigator:

• Hormonal Response to Infant Caregiving: A Novel Strategy to Break the Opioid Relapse Cycle during the Postpartum Period (New Innovator Award Funded by National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
• Modifying Progesterone and Estradiol Levels to  Prevent Postpartum Cigarette Smoking Relapse and Reduce Secondhand Smoke Exposure in Infants and Children (R01 Funded by National Institutes of Health, Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development)
• A Novel Approach to  Help Women of Reproductive Age Quit Smoking (Funded by Prevent Cancer Foundation)
• Development of an Adjunctive Behavioral Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder during the Postpartum Period (Funded by University of Arizona)