With the retirement of Steve Gust, Ph.D., the NIDA International Program welcomes new leadership: Beginning January 1, 2022, Jennifer A. Hobin, Ph.D., the Director of NIDA’s Office of Science Policy and Communications, will be leading the program with support from Lindsey Friend, Ph.D., of NIDA’s Office of Research Training, Diversity, and Disparities in the management of NIDA International training programs. This reorganization reflects NIDA’s continued commitment to advancing international research collaboration and training while ensuring coordination of international program activities with NIDA’s broader science policy, communications, and education initiatives.
Drs. Hobin and Friend look forward to building on the strong partnerships with the international research community established by Dr. Gust to further strengthen the global network of investigators, research institutions, and international organizations working to advance research on substance use and apply that knowledge to improve individual and public health.
We thank Dr. Gust for his leadership and wish him the very best in his retirement from federal service.
Jennifer Hobin, Ph.D.
Dr. Hobin is Director of NIDA’s Office of Science Policy and Communications (OSPC), where she provides strategic leadership and guidance in policy, communications, legislative affairs, and stakeholder relations. Prior to joining NIDA as OSPC’s Deputy Director in 2018, Dr. Hobin served as Chief of the Science Policy Branch at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She previously served as the Director of Science Policy at both the American Association for Cancer Research (AACR) and the Federation of American Societies for Experimental Biology (FASEB), the nation’s largest coalition of biomedical researchers. While at AACR and FASEB, she worked with NIH grantees to advance policies on a host of research and public health issues, including tobacco control, research funding, peer review, human subjects protections, and scientific training and career development. Trained in psychology and neuroscience, Dr. Hobin transitioned from laboratory research into science policy via the Christine Mirzayan Science and Technology Policy Graduate Fellowship program at the National Academies. She earned her Ph.D. in biopsychology from the University of Michigan where she studied neurobiological circuits involved in fear memory retrieval.
Lindsey Friend, Ph.D.
Lindsey Friend is a Research Training and Career Development Program Officer (Health Science Administrator) in NIDA’s Office of Research Training, Diversity, and Disparities. Her priority is to assist NIDA’s extramural research training and career development programs. Dr. Friend received her doctorate in neuroscience from Brigham Young University where she studied cocaine and cannabinoid effects on reward circuitry. She did a postdoctoral fellowship at the Eunice Kennedy Shriver National Institute of Child Health and Human Development studying glutamate receptor physiology before joining NIDA in 2020.