Attention Magazine August 2024

With immense enthusiasm and pride, CHADD announces that James Aluri, MD, MA, and Gabrielle Fabrikant-Abzug, MA, are the recipients of the 2024 Young Scientist Research Awards. Heading into its nineteenth year, the program continues to draw accomplished candidates from diverse backgrounds and experiences who are working on critical research topics in ADHD.

Along with their curriculum vitae, academic recommendations, and other documents illustrating their education history, applicants submit an example of their research for review. James Aluri, the postdoctoral awardee, submitted “Variation in ADHD Treatment by Mental Health Care Setting Among US College Students from 2019 to 2022.” Gabrielle Fabrikant-Abzug, the predoctoral awardee, submitted “Genetic and Environmental Mechanisms of the Intergenerational Transmission of ADHD: The Influence of Parental ADHD and Parenting Behaviors.”

Experts from CHADD’s professional advisory board volunteered to evaluate and rate the applications. The awards are currently supported by individual donations. Winners will receive their awards at the 2024 Annual International Conference on ADHD in Anaheim, California, November 14-16, 2024.

James Aluri, MD, MA

James Aluri, MD, MA, will be an assistant professor in the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine starting in July 2024. He earned his MD from JHUSOM and obtained a master’s degree in bioethics with distinction from King’s College London, where he was supported by a Wellcome Trust Master’s Award. During medical school, he worked as a research fellow with former president Barack Obama’s Commission for the Study of Bioethical Issues. After graduating from medical school, he remained at Johns Hopkins for psychiatry residency and a postdoctoral fellowship. Clinically, he works at Johns Hopkins Student Mental Health Services, serving students, residents, and fellows. Under the mentorship of David Goodman, MD, Dr. Aluri developed clinical expertise in treating adults with ADHD, which led to positions on the committee to establish the first US clinical guidelines for treating adult ADHD and on the ADHD services task group at JHU. Dr. Aluri’s research, focusing on ADHD treatment utilization patterns at college campus clinics, has identified limitations in the availability of campus ADHD services. He aims to use his research to identify evidence-based ways to improve student access to high quality ADHD assessment and treatment services at campus clinics, especially for underserved populations.

Gabrielle Fabrikant-Abzug, MA

Gabrielle (“Gabi”) Fabrikant-Abzug, MA, is a graduate student in the clinical psychology program at Arizona State University. Under the mentorship of Lauren Friedman, PhD, assistant professor and director of the Hyperactivity, Executive Function, and Attention Treatment (HEAT) Lab, Fabrikant-Abzug is dedicated to advancing empirical research in the field of ADHD to enhance the well-being of parents and children. She earned her undergraduate degree in psychology with a minor in public health from the University of Southern California and subsequently completed her master’s degree in clinical psychology at Arizona State University. Her research examines the impact of parental psychopathology and parenting behaviors on children’s mental health outcomes. As nearly half of children with ADHD have a parent who also meets diagnostic criteria, her recent focus has been on multiplex families, where both parents and children are affected by ADHD symptoms. Fabrikant-Abzug’s current project, submitted for this award and serving as her dissertation work, investigates the mechanisms underlying the intergenerational transmission of ADHD from parents to children. The outcomes of this study will clarify these mechanisms’ contributions to symptom presentation and severity and provide direct translational targets for ADHD intervention. Her long-term goal is to use empirical research to improve existing interventions and better support all families who are affected by ADHD.

Rachel James, MSLIS, is the health sciences librarian at CHADD and manager of the Young Scientist Research Awards.