Teresa Levitin

Teresa Levitin received her Ph.D. in social psychology from the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. She subsequently held a post doctoral position at Yale Law School in the Russell Sage Program in Law and Social Sciences, where she researched the applicability of various models of decision making to jury decision making and continued her research on presidential politics and voting behavior. Subsequently, at the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH), NIH/DHHS she had program and review responsibility for a range of applications on mental health issues in children, youth, and families. In that role, she, for example, initiated a research program on the effects of divorce on children. She then moved to the Division of Research Grants (now the Center for Scientific Review) at NIH/DHHS. In this position, Dr. Levitin was responsible for scientific review committees that covered normal and abnormal infant, child, adolescent and young adult development. She also coordinated and supervised the activities of several other review staff in her unit. Currently as the Director of the Office of Extramural Affairs at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), NIH/DHHS, Dr. Levitin works with NIDA and NIH staff as well as the scientific community in a number of different areas. Her office houses several standing study sections that review NIDA’s medications development, treatment, and services research as well as NIDA’s career development, centers and other special mechanisms. Office functions also include providing NIDA staff training on NIH policies and procedures, working with NIDA staff to develop Requests for Applications (RFAs) and Program Announcements (PAs) and managing the NIDA Advisory Council. Dr. Levitin and staff routinely work with the scientific community to inform them about pertinent policies and procedures as well as to teach research grant writing skills.