MAY 9, 2025
David H. Epstein, PhD
Tenure-Track Investigator
National Institutes of Health
NIDA Intramural Research Program
Translational Addiction Medicine Branch (TAMB)
RAPT (Real-world Assessment, Prediction, and Treatment) Unit
About the Presentation: This talk will include EMA data from Dr. Epstein’s group, but rather than focusing narrowly on that body of work, Dr. Epstein will discuss issues that arise in the planning of almost any EMA study. The issues encompass overall design choices and specific implementational choices, and Dr. Epstein will discuss the investigator beliefs and aims that can inform those choices. He expects disagreement, but he also hopes most attendees will come away with ideas or information they can use.
About the Presenter: David Epstein received his doctorate in Biopsychology & Behavioral Neuroscience from the Psychology Department at Rutgers University in 1998. Since then, he has conducted human research at the National Institute on Drug Abuse in Baltimore, where he is now a tenure-track investigator. He leads a research group called RAPT: the “Real-world Assessment, Prediction, and Treatment” unit. He has over 20 years of experience in EMA (ecological momentary assessment) in people who use drugs nonmedically. EMA is the focus of most of his publications, which number almost 200 and have been cited over 12,000 times. These publications include the first large-scale deployment of EMA in people who use heroin and cocaine, and more recently the first-ever EMA study of people who use the legal drug kratom. He is preparing a program of studies on boredom and what he calls its opposites (such as curiosity and psychological richness) as risk/protective factors and mobile-intervention targets for people who use cannabis.