MIRECC / CoE

Highlights from Our Anchor Sites

Our affiliates in Houston, Little Rock, and New Orleans work hard to promote mental health education, research, and treatment locally and nationally. Here are some highlights of their accomplishments over the past three months.

Houston

Dr. Lilian Dindo Receives NAAMA Houston Award

Congratulations to Dr. Dindo for receiving the National Arab American Medical Association – Houston Chapter Rising Star Award. Dr. Dindo was recognized for her contributions to treatment delivery, adherence and access to novel treatments and developing new strategies for identifying and treating underreported, and thus undertreated, mental health symptoms in patients with chronic medical illness. Dr. Dindo was also recognized for training the next generation of clinical and academic psychologists and psychiatrists, as well as care providers in other medical specialties, using evidence-based mental health practice and research.

Drs. Anthony (Tony) Ecker and Laura Marsh Approved for New Advanced Fellowship Program

Congratulations to Drs. Ecker and Marsh for receiving approval for an Advanced Fellowship in Addiction Treatment at Michael E. DeBakey VA Medical Center. Houston was selected as one of five new sites. The program will recruit two fellows each year into a two-year, interprofessional, post-grad program that provides 75% time for scholarly addiction training (e.g., research, QI, program evaluation). Their goal is to recruit the first class to start in July 2026.

Dr. Alexandra (Ali) Caloudas Accepted into SGIM VA Partnered Research Training Program

Congratulations to Dr. Caloudas for being accepted to the 2025-2026 Society of General Internal Medicine (SGIM)’s Partnered Research Training Program. This program, which is funded by Veterans Administration Health Services Research, aims to equip early investigators with skills to conduct high-quality research in partnership with healthcare teams and systems.

Little Rock

Dr. Brandon Griffin’s Moral Injury Research Featured in HSR Impacts

Dr. Griffin’s work with Drs. Shira Maguen and Sonya Norman on moral injury was featured in Health Systems Research Impacts. The team worked together to create the Moral Injury and Distress Scale (MIDS). It is being adopted throughout VA as a tool for identifying Veterans with moral injury, which is traumatic stress elicited by witnessing, failing to prevent, or participating in events that contradict one’s moral beliefs and expectations To learn more, visit https://www.hsrd.research.va.gov/impacts/mids.cfm.

New Orleans

Drs. Claire Houtsma and Mary Shapiro’s CDA-2s Funded

Congratulations to Drs. Houtsma and Shapiro for the funding of their Career Development Awards (CDAs).

Dr. Houtsma’s Clinical Science Research & Development CDA-2 study, “Reducing Firearm Suicide Among Veterans: Evaluating the Effectiveness of Peer-Delivered Lethal Means Counseling,” aims to estimate the effectiveness, as well as factors that impact or account for the effectiveness, of Peer Engagement and Exploration of Responsibility and Safety (PEERS). It is expected that PEERS will lead to greater use of secure firearm storage, and this will be accounted for and influenced by mechanisms conceptualized by the Theory of Planned Behavior, factors proposed in prior research (e.g., PTSD hyperarousal symptoms), and unique mechanisms yet to be identified. To test these hypotheses, firearm owning Veterans (N = 100) will be recruited to participate in a randomized controlled trial comparing PEERS to a psychoeducation control.

Dr. Shapiro’s Health Systems Research CDA-2 study, “Adaptation and Examination of a Trauma-Informed Intervention for Pregnant Veterans,” will start this spring. This study aims to refine and examine an intervention called Calm Moms. Calm Moms is a web-based treatment program designed to reduce anxiety, stress, and low mood symptoms among pregnant Veterans with a history of trauma exposure. The current proposal also aims to collect information regarding the implementation of Calm Moms at additional sites, which will allow Calm Moms to impact a larger group of pregnant Veterans.

Last updated: April 23, 2025