About Us
Jennifer Merrill
Jennifer Merrill is the Principal Investigator for Project ARC, which means that she oversees the study. Dr. Merrill is an Associate Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University. She has primarily focused on investigating the drinking experiences of young adults. She is particularly interested in drinking patterns, alcohol-related consequences, and blackouts. She has current interests in qualitative methods, ecological momentary assessment, alcohol biosensors, advanced data analysis, and intervention development. When she’s not working, Dr. Merrill enjoys traveling, hiking, the beach, crafting, shopping and her two cats.
Holly Boyle
Holly Boyle is a four-year doctoral student at Brown University School of Public Health who has a master in science in Behavioral and Social Health Sciences. Her research focuses on exploring simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use among young adults. She recently received an F31 Fellowship from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism for her research on “Examining person and event level predictors of simultaneous alcohol and cannabis use via mixed methods” When she is not working Holly loves hiking, camping, and going to the beach.
Siobhan Perks
Siobhan Perks is a doctoral student in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University’s School of Public Health, interested in understanding motivations and risk factors for substance use among adolescents and young adults. She is specifically interested in developing and evaluating health behavior interventions for at-risk drinkers that reduce negative alcohol-related consequences and the co-use of or progression to other substances, like tobacco. Siobhan holds an MPH in Epidemiology from Emory University. She enjoys hiking, traveling, and playing with her dog Massie.
Gabriela López
Gabriela López is a postdoctoral fellow at the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences at Brown University’s School of Public Health. She received her PhD in 2020 from the University of New Mexico. Her work focuses on the intersection of alcohol use and sexual violence among sexual and racial/ethnic minority women. Her work has been recognized by the Association for Psychological Science for outstanding research with socially underrepresented populations. Gaby loves dancing, hiking, traveling, reading, playing with her guitar and most importantly playing with her puppy, Macarena.
Anne Neary
Anne Neary is the Project ARC senior research assistant. She graduated from the University of Massachusetts Amherst Honors College with a BS in psychology and neuroscience. While at the University of Massachusetts, she assisted with research on borderline personality disorder and emotion regulation and had a job in counseling. She is interested in PTSD, substance use, and emotion regulation. She enjoys reading, hiking, and playing with her pet birds.
Brian Nguyen
Brian Nguyen is an undergraduate research assistant and a student at Brown University from Milpitas, CA. Outside of school, he enjoys playing soccer and combat sports.
Haile Shangin
Halie Shangin is a Project ARC research assistant and a student at Brown University. She is pursuing her BA in psychology. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island currently, but she is from Anchorage, Alaska. She enjoys hiking, baking, and photography.
Alison Lu
Alison Lu is a Project ARC research assistant and a student at Brown University. She lives in Providence, Rhode Island currently, but she is currently from Honolulu, Hawaii. A fun fact about Alison is that she speaks 3 languages: English, Chinese, and Japanese.
Nancy Barnett
Nancy Barnett is a Co-Investigator of Project ARC. Dr. Barnett is a Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Social Sciences, which is in the School of Public Health. Her office, and all the offices of the research team, are in the “Hemenway’s Building” at 121 South Main Street. Her primary research interest is helping teenagers and young adults stay out of trouble with drugs and alcohol. She is particularly interested in using technologies like computers, smartphones, and wearable sensors to study behavior and develop interventions that improve health. When she isn’t hanging out with her own teenagers she loves to bike, play with her pets (including her new “COVID puppy”) Boston Terrier, and work on her house.
Kristina M. Jackson
Kristina M. Jackson is a co-investigator for Project ARC. She received her graduate training (PhD in 1997) in applied social psychology at Arizona State University, with an emphasis on quantitative methods and their application to health-related behaviors, after which she was a postdoc and then assistant professor at the University of Missouri-Columbi. She joined the faculty at Brown University in 2005 and is happy to be back on the east coast and near the ocean. Her research focuses on understanding the risk factors for drinking, the influence of exposure to alcohol content in the media on adolescent drinking, and the progression of substance use in adolescents and young adults. She is also interested in the co-use of alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana. In her free time, she likes to run and swim and she loves to travel (except when there is a pandemic). She also spends a lot of time trying to understand her teenage daughters.
Mary Beth Miller
Mary Beth Miller is a Co-Investigator for Project ARC. She received her PhD in Clinical Psychology from Oklahoma State University after completing her clinical residency through the Brown University training consortium in 2015. Dr. Miller completed an NIH-funded postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University from 2015-2017 and began a faculty position at the University of Missouri-Columbia in July 2017. The goal of her research is to find ways to help people stay out of trouble with substance use. She is also interested in the interplay of sleep and substance use. When she is not working, she likes to find new running trails and chase her toddler around outside.
Kate Carey
Kate Carey earned her PhD at Vanderbilt University in clinical psychology in 1985 and completed a post-doctoral fellowship in addiction and behavioral medicine at the Miriam Hospital/Brown University. Her research addresses motivation to change substance use, application of screening and brief intervention models for at-risk drinkers, influence of social norms on drinking behavior, and the contribution of alcohol intoxication on sexual risk behavior. She currently serves as Director of the Behavioral and Social Health Sciences PhD Program. When she has free time, Dr. Carey likes exploring new places, hiking in the woods or on the beach, and baking pies to celebrate special occasions.