Untitled

Author Biographies 497ground influences neurocognitive development in children, with an emphasis onreading development. She is also pursuing an M.D. from Penn and plans to pursuean academic career in pediatrics.Charles P. O’Brien, M.D., Ph.D., is Kenneth Appel Professor and Vice-Chair ofPsychiatry at the University of Pennsylvania, Vice Director of the Institute ofNeurological Sciences, and Director of the Center for Studies of Addiction. Hiswork involves discovery of CNS changes involved in relapse, new medications,behavioral treatments, and instruments for measuring the severity of addictivedisorders. Many of these discoveries are now utilized in common practice for thetreatment of addictive disorders throughout the world.Daniel Pine, M.D., is Chief of the Emotional Development and Affective NeuroscienceBranch and Chief of Child and Adolescent Research in the Mood andAnxiety Disorders Program of the National Institute of Mental Health IntramuralResearch Program. He has been engaged continuously in research focusing onthe epidemiology, biology, and treatment of psychiatric disorders in children andadolescents. He is currently examining the degree to which mood and anxietydisorders in children and adolescents are associated with underlying abnormalitiesin the amygdala, prefrontal cortex, and other brain regions that modulate activityin these structures.Michael Posner, Ph.D., is Professor Emeritus at the University of Oregon andAdjunct Professor of Psychology in Psychiatry at the Weill Medical College ofCornell, where he served as founding director of the Sackler Institute. He hasworked on the anatomy, circuitry, development, and genetics of three attentionalnetworks underlying maintaining alertness, orienting to sensory events, and voluntarycontrol of thoughts and ideas. His current research involves understandingthe interaction of specific experience and genes in shaping attention.Nathaniel R. Riggs, Ph.D., is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Institute forPrevention Research at the University of Southern California. Among his researchinterests are determining the role of neurocognition in models of prevention andtranslating evidence-based prevention programs for youth violence and substanceuse to programs focusing on the prevention of youth obesity.Daniel Romer, Ph.D., is Director of the Adolescent Risk Communication Institutein the Annenberg Public Policy Center at the University of Pennsylvania. Atthe Institute, he promotes the synthesis of research on adolescent mental and behavioralhealth to educate the public, scholarly community, and policy makersabout effective strategies to enhance adolescent development. He also conductsthe annual National Annenberg Risk Survey of Youth, a national probability