Course

Dr. Dan Ciccarone, MD, MPH is the Justine Miner Professor in Addiction Medicine, in the department of Family and Community Medicine, at UCSF. He has been principal or co-investigator on numerous NIH sponsored public health research projects including his current Synthetics in Combination (SYNC) study. He is a recognized international scholar on the medical, public health and public policy dimensions of substance use, risk and consequences. He is Associate Editor for the International Journal of Drug Policy and recently edited an IJDP special issue on the “triple wave crisis” of opioids, heroin and fentanyl in the US. He consults for numerous private and public entities including the ONDCP, CDC and FDA. 

Brandon Marshall, PhD is a professor of epidemiology at the Brown University School of Public Health. He is also founding director of the People, Place & Health Collective at Brown University. Dr. Marshall’s research focuses on substance use epidemiology, with a specific emphasis on harm reduction and overdose prevention. He is passionate about conducting research that improves the health and well-being of people who use drugs.

Sam Rivera has over 29 years of progressive experience in social services. His primary focus of expertise lies in Criminal Justice/Reentry, HIV/AIDS, Harm Reduction, Addiction/Recovery, and Mental Health. He currently serves as the Executive Director of New York Harm Reduction Educators and Washington Heights Corner Project, two merging harm reduction organizations that provide services to active drug users and sex workers in Northern Manhattan and The South Bronx, many of whom are low-income or homeless as well as of color and LGBTQ. He brings to this role his several decades of cutting-edge service provision experience and a commitment to social justice. He has dedicated his professional career to ameliorating the harms associated with the War on Drugs, racism/sexism, structural inequality, and mass incarceration and will continue to work to end systemic as well as systematic barriers to populations that are most vulnerable.

Kailin is proud to be the Senior Director of Programs for both the Washington Heights CORNER Project and the New York Harm Reduction Educations serving Washington Heights, East Harlem and the Bronx in New York City. She was the program and development lead for the historic opening of the first two sanctioned overdose prevention centers in the United States.

Before moving to New York in 2016, Kailin worked in Vancouver, Canada developing and operating innovative, award winning drug user-focused programs including the Drug User's Resource Center (DURC) which employed 150 active substance users and saw 1000 member visits a day. Beyond DURC, Kailin developed Canada’s first street-entrenched Managed Alcohol Program and an Alcohol Exchange for illicit alcohol consumers, a first in the world. Her many years working to improve the lived of people who use drugs has afforded her the opportunity to garner experience across multiple sectors including housing/shelter for active substance users, community based detox and treatment, social enterprise, indigenous-directed care and cultural programming, drug policy reform, advocacy and safe consumption. 

Clara first learned about harm reduction in 2005 after completing a residential treatment program following 18 years of crack cocaine use. She visited the Washington Heights CORNER Project on the recommendation of her peers in the neighborhood and quickly became a participant of the program. Clara began using heroin in 2012 and credits the Washington Heights CORNER Project for keeping her safe and healthy throughout her use. She is a fierce advocate for the rights of people who use drugs and has been to Albany and Washington many times fighting for policy change and meaningful action to redress the harms of the war on drug users. Clara has been an invaluable member of the WHCP staff team for nearly 9 years serving as a peer, outreach specialist and now as the Senior Harm Reduction Associate. Harm Reduction is her passion.

Today she is proud to say she works in and uses the first overdose prevention center in the USA.

Daniel Suter, MD was born and raised in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania before attending college at the University of Toronto and working for a period in Montreal. He returned to the University of Pittsburgh for Medical School and completed his Psychiatry Residency at the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai in NYC. He subsequently completed an Addiction Psychiatry Fellowship through the Mount Sinai Addiction Institute. Currently he is an attending on the inpatient detox/rehab and consultation services at the Addiction Institute, where he is involved in teaching trainees and clinical care. 

Andrea Jakubowsk, MD, MS vi is an Assistant Professor and Internist at Montefiore Medical Center's Comprehensive Care Center in the Bronx. She received her medical degree from the Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai.