Message from the Division Director

Welcome to the Division of Addiction Psychiatry web page. I hope you will find it helpful in learning about our educational, research, and clinical programs. 

The Division is active in creating new research teams, publishing articles, presenting at national conferences and grand rounds, serving on national review committees, and teaching trainees from a variety of disciplines. Division faculty regularly present at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence, Research Society on Alcoholism, Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco, American Psychiatric Association, and American Academy of Addiction Psychiatry Annual meetings.

The faculty and staff within the Division of Addiction Psychiatry have a broad range of research interests related to addictions including tobacco, cocaine, alcohol, heroin, behavioral therapy development, psychopharmacology, neuropsychology, and genetics. National Institute of Health and pharmaceutical grants and contracts support research aimed at improving treatments for schizophrenia and co-occurring addiction, cocaine addiction, alcohol dependence, and tobacco dependence.

Thank you for your interest in our Division, I hope you will find the information provided helpful.

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Jill M. Williams, M.D. is an Associate Professor and Director of the Division of Addiction Psychiatry at UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School and Director of Mental Health Tobacco Services at the UMDNJ-Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. She is also affiliated with the UMDNJ-School of Public Health Tobacco Dependence Program in New Brunswick and a member of the Cancer Institute of New Jersey.

Dr. Williams conducts research on smokers with serious mental illnesses including schizophrenia and bipolar disorder and was the recipient of a NIDA Mentored Patient-Oriented Research Career Development Award. Her research examines differences in nicotine intake, cigarette puffing and nicotine craving in individuals with schizophrenia in hopes that these discoveries will lead to better treatments in the future. She has received research funding from the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and the American Legacy Foundation. She lectures extensively on changing mental health systems to incorporate tobacco dependence treatment and works with consumers to increase their knowledge about tobacco illness and the hope of treatment. She is the Founder and Medical Director of CHOICES, a consumer driven initiative to outreach smokers with mental illness in the community via mental health peer counselors (www.njchoices.org)

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