Staff

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.

Brittany Bugbee, MPH is the Project Coordinator for the Maryland Collaborative and works with Dr. Amelia Arria at the University of Maryland School of Public Health. In this role, she assists the Collaborative members with implementing the Maryland College Alcohol Survey (MD-CAS) and also manages activities related to individual-level strategies to address excessive alcohol use. She earned her Master of Public Health in Behavioral and Community Health from the University of Maryland School of Public Health.

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.

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.

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.