Lab News
August 2020 - Aaron F. Waters, Ph.D., defended his dissertation.
Dissertation Title: Readiness to change and smoking expectancies among adult male substance users currently in substance use treatment
Dr. Waters completed his pre-doctoral internship at the VA Western New York Healthcare System in Buffalo, NY. He is currently completing his postdoctoral fellowship at the VA West Los Angeles Healthcare Center in Los Angeles, CA with an emphasis in Interprofessional Integrative Health. His current research interests include identifying barriers to smoking cessation among at-risk populations.
September 2020 - The Smoking and Substance Use Clinical Research Lab Announces New Honor's Thesis Project!
Maggie Duplantier is a senior undergraduate psychology student from Braithwaite, Louisiana. She is currently a research assistant in the lab and has proposed her Honor's Thesis Project through the Ogden Honor’s College at LSU. Her project is focused on a behavioral economics approach to e-cigarette dependency in college students. Specifically, she plans on modifying the Cigarette Purchase Task (Jacobs & Bickel, 1999; MacKillop et al., 2008) for electronic cigarettes. We are so excited to see where this research takes her and are honored for her to be a part of the lab!
August 2020 - The Smoking and Substance Use Clinical Research Lab Announces New Research Member!
We are proud to announce the newest addition to our research team, Keandra Muse! Keandra is a dedicated Technician at the Woodlake inpatient addiction treatment center in Ethel, LA. Keandra will be assisting with participant recruitment and data collection on the Opiate Withdrawal and Smoking Study, which compares smoking status in patients undergoing medication assisted detoxification for Opioid Use Disorder. The primary aim of the study is to compare the smoking and nonsmoking OD patients on a variety of psychosocial measures, including affective and cognitive variables, along with opiate withdrawal measures throughout the detoxification process and at 3 and 6 months follow up.
Keandra at Woodlake Addiction Recovery in Ethel, LA.
Woodlake Addiction Recovery in Ethel, LA.
Woodlake Addiction Recovery in Ethel, LA.
June 2020 - College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD) 2020 Virtual Conference!
Dr. Copeland presented a talk titled, "Menopause, Nicotine Dependence, and Smoking Cessation" at CPDD June 23, 2020. This talk was in a symposium that she co-chaired on Aging and Addiction, which had over 100 "virtual" attendees.
Life Course and Aging Center (LCAC) annual conference!
Dr. Copeland and collaborators Dr. Brown and Dr. Spurlock from the Southern University
School of Nursing at the Life Course and Aging Center (LCAC) annual conference March
15, 2019. Photo: Dr. Sandra Brown (left), Dr. Amy Copeland (middle), and Dr. Wanda
Spurlock (right).
New Lab members!
Please welcome Chynna Dubuclet and Morgan Offord to the LSU Smoking and Substance Abuse Research Lab! Chynna and Morgan will be visiting for the month of June from Xavier University and Spelman College (respectively) as part of the 2018 Predoctoral Scholars Institute (PDSI) program.
The PDSI is a competitive and intensive 4-week program that prepares undergraduate students for future doctoral level studies. During the summer Chynna and Morgan worked on original research projects under the mentorship of Dr. Copeland. Chynna's study looked at associations between post-traumatic stress disorder and substance use disorder among college students. Morgan's study looked at substance use as a predictor of suicidal ideation among women. Congratulations scholars!
Chynna Dubuclet (left), Morgan Offord (middle), and Dr. Copeland (right) discuss research
topics during one of their PDSI meetings.
Chynna (left) and Morgan (right) with their PDSI awards after they presented their
summer research projects at LSU.
Congratulations to MacKenzie Peltier, Ph.D.
MacKenzie Peltier recently defended her dissertation and was awarded her doctoral
degree! Dr. Peltier has accepted a post-doctoral position at the Department of Psychiatry
at the Yale School of Medicine. Best of luck Dr. Peltier!
Over the summer Dr. Peltier successfully defended her dissertation titled, "Motivation and Readiness for Tobacco Cessation Among Nicotine Dependent Postmenopausal Females: A Pilot Study". Dr. Peltier has accepted a post-doctoral position at the Department of Psychiatry at the Yale School of Medicine where she will continue her research surrounding female hormones and cessation.
MacKenzie Peltier, Ph.D. (pictured right) and Amy Copeland, Ph.D. (pictured left) after the doctoral program graduation ceremony on August 4th, 2017.
Congratulations to our spring 2017 graduating seniors!
Katie Davis (pictured) and Shelby Stewart have been research assistants in Dr. Copeland's
Smoking and Substance Use Clinical Laboratory for the past four years and have worked
on numerous studies conducted in the lab. As undergraduate honors students working
under Dr. Copeland's supervision, both Katie and Shelby developed, conducted, and
successfully defended an honors thesis project as part of their honors program curriculum.
Congratulations!
Katie and Shelby for present their posters at the 2017 LSU Discover Day Research Conference
Katie Davis (left), Shelby Stewart (middle), and Dr. Copeland (right) at the LSU Discover Day Research Conference, April 4, 2017. Katie and Shelby both presented findings from their honors theses. Katie presented her thesis findings titled, "Trauma, Resilience, & Alcohol Use Among College Students", while Shelby presented findings from her thesis titled, "Perceived Sleep Quality and Subjective Social Status as Predictors of Alcohol Consequences in College Students".
Congratulations to Shelby Stewart!
Shelby Stewart received the LSU Discover Scholar Award! Dr. Copeland (left) and Shelby
Stewart (right), LSU Discover Scholar Awardee. LSU Discover Scholar Award Ceremony,
March 2, 2017.