UB psychologist named 2002 TERN Scholar
Craig Colder to use program to further work in adolescent substance use

By PATRICIA DONOVAN
Contributing Editor

A UB psychologist whose research seeks to identify multiple levels of influence that contribute to the development of adolescent substance use has been selected by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation as a Tobacco Etiology Research Network (TERN) Scholar for 2002.

His selection will allow Craig Colder, assistant professor in the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences, to work with the network, composed of senior scientists representing a number of disciplines whose principal purpose is to understand predictors of transitions and trajectories in tobacco use, from no use to dependence.

The goal of the TERN Scholar Program is to train junior investigators to become the next generation of researchers who take tobacco research in new directions.

"Colder's research has already attracted national attention to UB," said Jack Meacham, professor and chair of the Department of Psychology. "Although he has been involved in TERN activities for some time and has designed research with senior national figures in the field, his new designation carries with it an annual grant that will permit Colder to devote more time to his research and to participate more fully in the network's national activities.

Colder, who directs the UB Laboratory for the Study of Individual Differences and Substance Use, says his research attempts to integrate individual differences into current socialization and ecological theories.

His laboratory studies measure physiological reactivity, information processing and impulsivity, and examine how these individual differences observed in the laboratory influence the initiation and escalation of substance use. His work also attempts to differentiate between the pathways to adolescent substance use versus abuse.

Colder's pertinent publications examine the relationship between neighborhood danger, childhood aggression and the mediation mechanisms that result; psychosocial characteristics of alcohol users and problem users; interactive effects of impulsivity and anger on adolescent problem behavior, and the temperamental risks for adolescent alcohol involvement.