Monika Kolodziej, PhD

Monika Kolodziej, PhD is an Assistant Professor of Psychiatry. For over a decade, I have been involved in clinical treatment and research with persons diagnosed with substance dependence and other mental health and medical diagnoses. I have worked with this patient population in three diverse facilities: McLean Hospital (a psychiatric treatment facility), AdCare Hospital (a specialized substance abuse treatment facility), and now UMass Chan Medical School (a medical facility providing a broad spectrum of services). Therefore, one area of interest concerns the development and implementation of practical assessment and treatment tools for patients with complex co-occurring disorders who are likely to seek services in a variety of treatment settings and with multiple treatment providers. For example, I would be interested in revising a previous NIDA grant application to develop an integrated, web-based assessment tool for persons with co-occurring substance dependence and chronic hepatitis C. Moreover, at this time I am revising a standard CBT curriculum for application in the memantine-buprenorphine study for young adults with opiate dependence (PI: Gonzalez, G). Given the paucity of interventions for the growing population of opiate users between the ages of 18 and 25, I would be interested in developing a behavioral intervention for young adults seeking pharmacotherapy for opiate dependence. Per discussion in our recent addiction research meeting, it would be important and innovative to consider developing this intervention in consideration of persons’ neurocognitive processes related to impulsivity. Finally, I am interested in addressing how clinical assessment and treatment fits with persons’ broader experience of recovery, and how mentors in recovery, providers, policy makers, and researchers collaborate to facilitate intervention and recovery efforts in their community. In this domain, a number of us from the Central MA Addiction Consortium are planning to execute and “pilot test” a continuing education event related to addiction and recovery in Central MA, with the aim to then apply for a conference-planning grant from NIDA.