Team

Dr. Asfar has extensive experience in tobacco control research nationally and internationally. Since 2001, her tobacco control work has been funded continuously by the NIH and conducted both in the United States and the Eastern Mediterranean Region, including Syria, Lebanon, and Tunisia. This work involves epidemiological and qualitative studies of tobacco use, randomized clinical trials of smoking cessation interventions, and tobacco regulatory research in health communication approaches targeting emerging tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and hookahs. She has two overarching aims in her research: (1) improving smoking cessation treatment among socially disadvantaged and high-risk populations (i.e., low-income adults, ethnic minorities, HIV patients, cancer survivors); and (2) preventing tobacco use among youth and young adults by advancing health communication strategies, such as health warning labels. She has more than 60 peer-reviewed publications (Asfar T - Search Results - PubMed (nih.gov)) and many of these are in leading, high impact journals in this field (i.e., Tobacco Control; Nicotine and Tobacco Research; Addiction; and the Cochrane Tobacco Addiction Group). Dr. Asfar has currently five active grants as PI including:

• 1R01DA051836: Developing and testing health warning labels on the ENDS (electronic cigarette) device
• 20K10 James and Esther King Biomedical Research Program: Developing and testing waterpipe-specific health warning labels targeting young people in Florida
• R01TW010654-01: Translating Evidence and Building Capacity to Support Waterpipe Control in the Eastern Mediterranean
• CFAR Pilot Award P30AI07396: “Mind2Quit” Developing A Mindfulness Smartphone App for Smoking Cessation for People Living with HIV.
• Sylvester Cancer Center Pilot Award P30CA240139: Smartphone Application versus In-Person Mindfulness-Based Smoking Cessation Intervention for Young Cancer Survivors: Reach versus Effectiveness.

Dr. Richard J. Thurer is a Professor at the Miller School of Medicine who has focused on a number of research areas throughout his career. These research areas include cardiac electrophysiology, largely involving device use and development, combined modality therapy for lung cancer, lung cancer screening utilizing CT scanning, and developing patient aids in lung cancer screening. Dr. Thurer also plays an active community role in tobacco control, serving as Chair of the Tobacco Free Workgroup and being a member of the Executive Board of the Consortium for a Healthier Miami-Dade.

In this project, he will collaborate with Asfar and Maziak to disseminate the research findings, increase awareness about the harmful effects of waterpipe in the general public, and promote health warning labels use for waterpipe control in Florida among our local community leaders through our community partner (e.g., SWAT team: Students Work Against Tobacco).

Laura A. McClure is a public health research manager with 15 years’ experience in conducting and coordinating epidemiology and clinical trial studies, along with a number of tobacco-related publications. She has served as manager for a variety of chronic disease research studies with an emphasis on smoking cessation, cancer surveillance, and occupational health risks.

Alejandra Casas is a research assistant at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences. She has experience in assisting and conducting research studies in psychology and public health, in topics such as obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) and smoking cessation. She has previous experience in facilitating cognitive behavioral therapy sessions for patients with anxiety related disorders, executive functioning, and eating disorders.

Olusanya J. Oluwole is a research analyst at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine’s Department of Public Health Sciences. He has experience in clinical medicine, biostatistics and public health. His previous research experience focused on infectious diseases, indoor air pollution, breast and brain cancer. He is currently involved in research on tobacco use and smoking cessation.

Dr. Wasim Maziak is a professor of Epidemiology, Director of the Clinical Research Lab for Tobacco Smoking at Florida International University, and Founder of the Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies. Dr. Maziak has extensive experience in tobacco control research and has published over 200 peer-reviewed scientific reports, including contributions in Science, Nature, Lancet, and British Medical Journal. His focus has been on emerging tobacco products such as e-cigarettes and hookah (Waterpipe), especially risk communication strategies targeting young users. He has been continuously funded by NIH since 2001 for tobacco control research.

Dr. Maziak’s Clinical Research Laboratory is located at the Academic Health Center 4 at FIU MMC campus. This state-of-the-art facility is fully equipped with five computer stations, blood drawing and specimen processing areas, fully furnished physical examination station, real-time monitoring equipment for vital signs, subjective measures assessment capability, and the latest in smoking topography technology (i.e., puff count, puff volume, average flow, puff duration, interpuff interval). This laboratory is devoted to assessing the impact of emerging tobacco products among young people such as waterpipe (hookah) and electronic nicotine delivery systems (i.e., ENDS, e-cigarettes). The research team is the first to evaluate this highly addictive and misperceived tobacco use method in a clinical lab setting, as its popularity grows statewide and nationally—especially among youth. 

Dr. Bursac is a Professor and Chair of the Department of Biostatistics and Director of the Biostatistics Consulting Service Center at the Stempel College of Public Health, at Florida International University. Throughout his career, Dr. Bursac has authored/co-authored more than 100 peer reviewed publications in clinical medicine, biostatistics, and diverse areas in public health.

Wei Li is interested in research that focuses in Tobacco Control and Chronic Diseases. His dissertation is related to harm perception and ENDS (e-cigarette) use among young people in the United States. He is mentored by Dr. Wasim Maziak’s at FIU and working on several projects of emerging tobacco products among young people (e.g., waterpipe and ENDS).

Dr. Michael Schmidt is a social and behavioral research scientist in the field of public health, graphic designer, associate professor of design in the Department of Art, and affiliate faculty member in the School of Public Health at the University of Memphis. Dr. Schmidt's research areas include substance use disorders, intimate partner violence, and child and family wellbeing.

Dr. Schmidt serves as graphic designer on this project, assisting with conceptual development and providing photo editing, typography, and layout design for the health warning labels.

Ian Abrams, an Executive Vice President at Golin, a global communications agency, has spent his 20+ years at the firm managing the agency’s government and social marketing projects. He is a seasoned marketing communications professional with more than two decades experience across multiple disciplines. Ian has led the agency’s work on iconic projects including the renowned truth® anti-tobacco campaign, the CDC's Tips From Former Smokers® campaign, and the rebranding of the Florida Lottery and the YMCA of the USA. 

He has considerable experience building communications and social marketing programs for government, non-profit, and corporate clients including U.S. Pharmacopiea, NASA, YMCA of the USA, the U.S. Navy Recruiting Command, the Office of the U.S. Surgeon General, Florida Lottery, the National Heart Lung and Blood Institute (NHLBI), Adopt-A-Waterway, the University of Miami, The Florida Department of Health, Hospice Foundation of America, and The Children’s Trust, along with anti-tobacco campaigns for various issues in a dozen states and numerous countries.  

Barbara Lopez is a manager at Golin, with three years of experience in the industry. Barbara’s primary focus is on public health communications, specifically as it relates to healthcare provider outreach. Barbara’s current clients include the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Tips From Former Smokers® Campaign and Tobacco Free Florida, the statewide tobacco control program run by the Florida Department of Health.

Barbara leads Tobacco Free Florida’s healthcare provider initiative. Barbara leads The Bridge, a daily media and relevancy action plan customized for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health. Finally, Barbara leads the creation of the social media analytics report for the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Office on Smoking and Health social media channels.

Donna Vallone is a chief research officer at the Truth Initiative Schroeder Institute, leading more than 35 research staff focused on examining the influence of health communication and tobacco policy initiatives to reduce tobacco use among youth and young adults. Donna Vallone also oversees the evaluation of the truth^® campaign, one of the largest and longest successful youth tobacco prevention campaigns.  Vallone is the author of more than 150 peer reviewed academic manuscripts and serves on a number of expert panels, evaluation advisory committees, and editorial teams.

Her research interests include decreasing tobacco use through media communications, primarily among racial/ethnic minority groups and populations of lower socioeconomic status. She received her doctoral degree from Columbia University in Sociomedical Sciences.

Elizabeth Hair, Ph.D., is a Senior Vice President for the Truth Initiative Schroeder Institute. Hair oversees the health communication research including the formative research of the truth® campaign and the longitudinal evaluation of the campaign’s effectiveness in communicating anti-smoking messages to young adults. In addition, she conducts research on youth tobacco and e-cigarette product use. She has over two decades experience in conducting research on child and family well-being, including issues related to health and mental health, health risk behaviors, vulnerable youth, and the transition to adulthood.

Virginia Commonwealth University

Thomas Eissenberg, PhD
Professor (Tenured)
Co-Founder and Laboratory Director, Syrian Center for Tobacco Studies
Fellow, American Psychological Association, Division 28
Email: teissenb@vcu.edu

Dr. Eissenberg’s primary area of research involves developing and demonstrating methods to evaluate modified risk and other novel tobacco/nicotine products. He has authored or co-authored more than 200 peer-reviewed publications and served as principal investigator on numerous NIH grants.

University of North Carolina

Seth M. Noar is a member of UNC’s Lineberger Comprehensive Cancer Center. Dr. Noar’s research interests are focused on health communication particularly how to harness traditional and new media to promote healthy behavioral changes among individuals and communities. For more than a decade, much of Dr. Noar’s research was focused HIV/AIDS. He has worked on National Institutes of Health (NIH) projects on developing and evaluating televised media campaigns to increase safer sexual behavior and has been a principal investigator on a National Institute of Mental Health funded project. Dr. Noar is also conducting significant research on anti-tobacco messages, including graphic warning labels on cigarette packs. He is the co-director of the Communication Core for the UNC Center for Regulatory Research on Tobacco Communication, funded by an FDA/NIH grant from 2013-2018. Much of his research today also focuses on cancer prevention.

Georgetown University

Eric N. Lindblom, JD, is a policy expert that will guide the project team on the legal aspects of applying ENDS HWLs consistent with FDA’s deeming rule, its statutory authority, and state and local governments’ constraints. Mr. Lindblom is a Senior Scholar and formerly the Director for Tobacco Control and Food and Drug Law at the O’Neil Institute for National and Global Health Law. Mr. Lindblom works on both domestic and international tobacco control matters and works with other regulatory and public health researchers to help make their research more policy relevant. Mr. Lindblom has previously worked on the full range of FDA tobacco control activities, specifically focusing on the economic analysis, legal, and policy of existing and proposed Center for Tobacco Products activities. Mr. Lindblom has also served as the Director for Policy Research and General Counsel for Tobacco- Free Kids, where he focused on legal and economic tobacco control issues.

Kenneth D. Ward, PhD is a Professor and Director of the Division of Social and Behavioral Sciences at the University of Memphis as well as Adjunct Professor of Preventive Medicine at the University of Tennessee College of Medicine. Dr. Ward’s research focuses on community, healthcare system, and population level approaches to reduce the burden of tobacco use. He is particularly interested in improving methods to help smokers quit and is a Certified Tobacco Treatment Specialist and holds a National Certificate in Tobacco Treatment Practice. Currently, Dr. Ward’s research projects include: (1) Epidemiology, prevention, and treatment of waterpipe ("hookah") and cigarette smoking in the U.S. and Middle East; (2) effects of stress and tobacco use on birth outcomes; and (3) use of tobacco and other substances in the aftermath of a disaster. He is also a Research Laureate the American Academy of Health Behavior and a fellow of AAHB, the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, and Society of Behavioral Medicine.