Committees

Dr. Nixon is a Distinguished Professor of Psychiatry and Psychology, Chief of Addiction Research, Director of the Biobehavioral Core of the University of Florida Clinical and Translational Science Institute, and Director of the Neurocognitive Laboratory in the UF Department of Psychiatry. She is an experienced clinical researcher in the area of substance abuse and dependence.

Because of the complex nature of substance abuse, her work uses comprehensive behavioral assessments including neuropsychological testing, brain electrophysiology (electroencephalography and event-related potentials), and clinical research interviews. This work has provided many opportunities for Dr. Nixon to provide training to graduate students and post-doctoral associates.

In addition to neurobehavioral research, Dr. Nixon has sustained a strong interest in community outreach and education. During her tenure in Oklahoma, she was instrumental in the development and implementation of the Oscar A. Parsons Summer Institute which engaged experts from across the country in the provision of education and training programs for community service providers and she was a key component (with Dr. Deborah Jones-Saumty) in the American Indian Research Group of Oklahoma which fostered substance-related research initiatives among the non-reservation residing tribes in the state. Following the Oklahoma City Bombing (1995), she diverted a portion of her efforts to another concern; the psychiatric impact of the tragedy on the community and emergency responders. Her continued commitment to community outreach is reflected in her on-going work focusing on the cognitive, psychological and social concomitants of substance use and her participation in a variety of workshops, seminars, committees and councils.

Dr. Nixon has authored over 110 peer-reviewed articles and book chapters as well as edited two books. She has made over 200 scientific presentations and held grants and awards from a variety of private, state and national sources including the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA), the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA), and more. She is completing her tenure as the Immediate Past President of the Research Society on Alcoholism. Within the American Psychological Association, Dr. Nixon is a Fellow in both Divisions 28 (Substance Use and Psychopharmacology) and 50 (Addiction) of the American Psychological Association. She served as the Member-at-large for Division 50 from 2006-2009.

The Peris lab is currently studying the neurochemical mechanisms of ethanol addiction. As part of this research, we measure how dopaminergic and amino acid neurotransmission in brain reward circuitry (e.g., nucleus accumbens, ventral tegmental area) is altered in rodents exhibiting high degrees of ethanol self-administration. We have developed the “jello shot” method of ethanol self-administration with Dr. Neil Rowland of the Department of Psychology. This model results in pharmacologically relevant levels of ethanol intake in non-genetically-selected rodents, but also controls for non-ethanol reward, caloric consumption and comparable levels of operant responding by the use of non-ethanol gelatin as a control reinforcer. Utilizing a combination of behavioral and microdialysis techniques, we have demonstrated that previous binge ethanol exposures selectively increase ethanol intake, ethanol reward and glutamate levels in nucleus accumbens while not affecting plain gel intake or neurotransmission during plain gel reward. Another novel finding indicates the importance of elevations in glycine in the nucleus accumbens during anticipation of reward.

Our most recent work, in collaboration with Dr. Eric G. Krause in our department, has focused on the role of oxytocin in the regulation of reward circuitry and its impact on ethanol intake. We have found that oxytocin receptors are expressed by both dopamine and glutamate neurons in the ventral tegmental area which might mediate oxytocin inhibition of ethanol intake. We are currently developing optogenetic techniques to address how selective activation of neurons in reward centers that express oxytocin receptors is altered by excessive ethanol intake.

Barry Setlow received his PhD in 1998 from the University of California, Irvine, where he worked with Jim McGaugh on amygdala-striatal systems involved in consolidation of different forms of learning and memory. He went on to post-doctoral training with Michela Gallagher at Johns Hopkins University, where he continued work on the role of amygdala-striatal systems in different forms of learning, using both behavioral and single-unit electrophysiological recording techniques. From there he moved to a position as an assistant professor at Texas A&M University, where his research focussed on the effects of both acute and chronic exposure to drugs of abuse on cognition, with a particular focus on decision-making. Dr. Setlow joined the Department of Psychiatry in 2010, where he is continuing his research on interactions between drug abuse and decision-making, as well as collaborating with other UF investigators on animal models of age-related cognitive decline.

Catherine Woodstock Striley, PhD, MSW, ACSW, MPE, conducts community-engaged research that aims to increase health equity among community members by going where people are, building relationships, being trustworthy and building partnerships. As Deputy Director of UF’s HealthStreet community engagement program, and in partnership with many community organizations and groups, Dr. Striley studies both the health conditions and concerns of people in the community and tests the effectiveness of community health worker (CHW) interventions to reduce barriers to care through providing screenings, linkages to care, services and research, and to provide prevention services health education and disease management. Dr. Striley is currently funded for HealthStreet’s Expanding Research and Recruitment by Engaging Adults through Community Health Workers (eREACH) research project with Benten Technologies, to support Community Health Workers (CHWs) in the process of screening and referral to health services through microlearning education for minority older adult community members, a virtual agent named “Reggie”, and text messaging of appointment reminders. She is a coinvestigator on $8+ million dollars of CDC- and NIH- funded research and $144 million dollars in federal funding through the Department of Health (L.B. Cottler, PI for all), all of which involve community-engagement. She also serves as the evaluator for Translational Workforce Development of the UF/FSU Clinical and Translational Science Institute. Dr. Striley is also the Co-Chair of the Community Coalition of Older adults in North Central Florida. She is the Director of the Psychiatric Epidemiology Program in the Department of Epidemiology where she is an Associate Professor. Dr. Striley serves as a Faculty Senator, is on the Senate Steering Committee and Budget Council for the University. She teaches Psychiatric Epidemiology and Ethics in Population Health (College of Public Health and Health Professions) and Population Health (College of Medicine), as well as mentoring undergraduate, pre- and post-doctoral students/trainees. She received a Master of Social Work in 1989 and a Doctorate of Philosophy in Social Work from the Brown School at Washington University in St. Louis in 2002, where she was a National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) predoctoral fellow. The National Institute on Drug Addiction (R03) funded her dissertation research. She completed the Master of Science in Epidemiology at Washington University School of Medicine in 2004 and completed a three-year postdoctoral fellowship in Epidemiology and Biostatistics funded by NIH in the Department of Psychiatry in 2005. She was a faculty member in that department from 2005 to June of 2011.

Dr. Bussing holds the position of Professor and Chief of Faculty Development in the Department of Psychiatry at UF.

Dr. Bussing received her medical degree from the Justus Liebig University in Giessen, Germany. She subsequently completed her psychiatry residency and child and adolescent fellowship at the University of Florida in Gainesville, as well as a Master of Science degree in health services research from the UCLA School of Public Health.

Dr. Bussing’s research expertise spans mental health services, measure development, pharmaco-epidemiology, psychotherapy intervention, and clinical pharmacology trials research. As NIMH-funded investigator studying, she led studies assessing access and quality of care for attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). Dr. Bussing also conducted a double-blind randomized, controlled trial to assess antidepressant medication related activation phenomena in youth with obsessive compulsive disorder (OCD). She was the co-investigator of an NIH funded randomized clinical trial assessing preschoolers’ response to a non-medication intervention for ADHD, Parent Child Interaction Therapy (PCIT). Furthermore, she collaborated on several other pivotal NIH funded children’s mental health services studies and served as principal investigator on multiple pediatric clinical psychopharmacology trials for ADHD, depression, PTSD, panic disorder and Tourette syndrome. More recently, Dr. Bussing collaborated as clinical lead on measure development for the CMS inpatient psychiatric facilities (IPF) quality program, including an IPF-specific readmission measure.

Dr. Bussing has served as reviewer and chair for multiple NIH and CDC study sections and on advisory boards for several organizations, including Children and Adults with Attention-Deficit/Hyperactivity Disorder (CHADD), PCIT International and the National Alliance on Mental Illness (NAMI).

Maureen Keller-Wood, Ph.D., is a professor and interim chair of the department of pharmacodynamics. She formerly served the UF College of Pharmacy as the associate dean for research and graduate education from 2015-2023. Dr. Keller-Wood’s overall research interest is the physiologic adaptations to pregnancy and effects of maternal physiology on fetal maturation and growth. Her current research focuses on understanding the mechanism for increased stillbirth and neonatal mortality in pregnancies complicated by maternal hypercortisolemia and altered maternal and fetal glucose metabolism. She received her Ph.D. in endocrinology from the University of California, San Francisco, in 1982 and her Bachelor of Arts in biochemistry from Vassar College in 1977.