Research institute director honored with APA award

Kenneth Leonard, PhD, director of the University at Buffalo Research Institute on Addictions (RIA), received the American Psychological Association (APA) Society of Addiction Psychology's Distinguished Scientific Contributions award this month at the APA annual conference in Toronto. Leonard, director of the institute since 2011, has focused his research efforts on substance abuse's impacts on marital and family processes.

The university's Department of Psychiatry chairman, Steven L. Dubovsky, MD, said of Leonard in an Aug. 11 news release, “Not only have his contributions to our understanding of the interaction of violence and substance use changed practice worldwide, but his research has extended to areas of knowledge ranging from treatment outcomes to diagnostic issues to metabolic changes in psychiatric illness.”

Leonard was hired as a research scientist at RIA in 1986. Federally supported research initiatives in which he has been involved have addressed topics such as spousal involvement in alcohol treatment and alcohol's effects on marital aggression.