Spotlight on TL1 Postdoctoral Trainee Sarah Weinsztok, Ph.D.
By Kelly Hale, Communications Coordinator
Nov 02, 2023
Sarah Weinsztok, Ph.D. is a behavior analyst who has conducted research across many populations, from clinical assessment and intervention of behavioral challenges among neurodivergent youth, to laboratory assessments of health behaviors, to her current work which focuses on alcohol use disorders. The project she will be working with support from the TL1 postdoctoral program is “A Prospective Behavioral Economic Analysis of Alternative Sources of Reinforcement for Hazardous Alcohol Use.” In other words, she is studying behavioral patterns on how identifying reinforcing substance-free activities as an alternative to using alcohol at a level considered hazardous can be used as an intervention.
“For instance, we might ask if a price point would impact whether or not someone drinks, and could we replace drinking with an activity that is less expensive, and we will track their behavior over time,” Weinsztok said, whose mentor, Michael Amlung Ph.D., MS, convinced her to move from Florida to Kansas to continue her research.
For these series of studies, they are collaborating with people both within and outside of the Cofrin Center for Addiction Research and Treatment at the University of Kansas, Lawrence.
“I’m excited to have a connection to the University of Kansas Medical Center through the TL1 program, and the opportunity to have additional mentors,” she said. “Learning how to make my project scalable, and gaining more quantitative and qualitative experience are two of the things I’m most looking forward to through this program.”