Staff - The Maryland Collaborative

Amelia Arria

Co-Director

Amelia M. Arria, PhD, is the Co-Director of the Maryland Collaborative where she provides strategic oversight of the individual-level strategies and leads administering the Maryland College Alcohol Survey (MD-CAS), a survey designed to measure levels of alcohol use and excessive drinking, the alcohol-related consequences that drinkers experience, and the harms students experience as a result of other students’ drinking.

She is also the Director of the Center on Young Adult Health and Development at the University of Maryland School of Public Health and is also a Professor in the Department of Behavioral and Community Health. Her research focuses on risk and resiliency factors associated with the development of mental health and substance use problems among adolescents and young adults, as well as the consequences of untreated mental health conditions and substance use.

She is the Principal Investigator on the College Life Study, a longitudinal prospective study of health-risk behaviors among college students. She has published more than 150 peer-reviewed scientific articles and much of her research has direct relevance to parents, clinicians and policy makers.

David Jernigan

Co-Director

David Jernigan, PhD, is a professor in the Department of Health Law, Policy and Management at the Boston University School of Public health, and a senior policy advisor to CityHealth, and initiative of the de Beaumont Foundation and Kaiser Permanent. He previously directed the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth (CAMY) and was an associate professor in the Department of Health, Behavior and Society at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health (JHSPH). He continues as an advisor to the Maryland Collaborative. Dr. Jernigan also serves on the boards of the Behavioral Health System Baltimore and the Global Alcohol Policy Alliance. He has written more than 130 peer-reviewed journal articles, co-authored three books and monographs, and contributed chapters to seven books on alcohol issues. He has served as an advisor to the World Bank and the World Health Organization (WHO), and was the principal author of WHO’s first Global Status Report on Alcohol and Global Status Report on Alcohol and Youth, and co-author of Alcohol in the Developing World: A Public Health Perspective and Media Advocacy and Public Health: Power for Prevention.

Malinda Kennedy, ScD

Malinda Kennedy, ScD is Project Director for the Maryland Collaborative and works with Dr. Arria at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. She received a BA in German from Brown University, an MPH in International Health from Emory University Rollins School of Public Health, and a ScD in Social Epidemiology from Harvard University T.H. Chan School of Public Health. She spent several years with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention as the coordinator for a foodborne disease surveillance network and assisting with outbreak investigations. Her research interests include child health and well-being and community and social influences on the health of children and young adults, particularly the influence of educational institutions on health.

Molly Mitchell

Program Manager

Molly Mitchell, JD, is the Program Manager for the Maryland Collaborative and works with Dr. Jernigan at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Molly oversees the daily operations of the initiative while providing technical assistance and trainings to the partner universities as they work to develop and implement interventions to change their environments that contribute to excessive alcohol consumption in and around their campus community. She also lends her expertise to the Maryland Strategic Prevention Framework II providing guidance to the nine jurisdictions in Maryland working to reduce underage drinking among 12-20 year-olds and binge drinking among 18-25 year-olds in Maryland.

Molly brings years of experience consulting with local nonprofit organizations on substance abuse prevention and is a member of the Maryland Bar Association.

Ayelet Hines

Ayelet Hines, is a Research Associate at the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth. Ayelet has three decades of experience working on campaigns for public health, workers’ rights, the environment, human rights, public safety, gay rights, environmental justice, animal rights and political candidates in more than 20 states and internationally. Ayelet’s career has involved organizing, strategic communications, non-violent direct action, lobbying, training, Get-Out-the-Vote, fundraising, and publishing for Environmental Defense Fund, the Sierra Club, Amnesty International, American Federation of State, County and Municipal Employees, the Democratic National Committee, Texas Observer, National Democratic Institute and others. She teaches Introduction to Campaigning & Organizing at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health.

Alicia Samuels

Communications

Alicia Samuels, MPH, oversees the communications efforts for the Maryland Collaborative. Alicia is also the Director of Communications for the Center on Alcohol Marketing and Youth at JHSPH. She works to raise public awareness of CAMY and youth exposure to alcohol marketing as a public health problem through media relations, social media and media advocacy.

Alicia also directs communications efforts for the Johns Hopkins Center on Gun Policy and Research. Alicia received her MPH from Emory University in 2001 and her BA cum laude from the University of Rochester in 1999.