May 23, 8:45 AM – 10:00 AM
McCosh Hall, Room 50

Moderator:

Daniel Notterman
Professor of the Practice in Molecular Biology; Senior Research Scholar, Molecular Biology; Senior Advisor to the Provost for Biomedical Affairs

Panelists:

Stephen Xenakis ’70
Brigadier General (retired), U.S. Army

David Nathan ’90
Founder and Past President, Doctors for Drug Policy Reform

Elizabeth “Liz” Bogel Ryan ’00
Medical Director, Boulder Care

Nabarun Dasgupta ’00
Senior Scientist and Innovation Fellow, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill

Sponsored by the Alumni Association of Princeton University

Participants:

Daniel Notterman
Daniel Notterman is a pediatrician and molecular biologist whose research explores how genetic variants and environmental factors shape behavioral, cognitive and emotional development in children. His lab investigates how gene-environment interactions, including epigenetic changes like DNA methylation, influence health outcomes across the lifespan. As part of the Future of Families and Child Wellbeing Study, his team studies nearly 5,000 children born in large U.S. cities, linking genetic and epigenetic data to social, behavioral and health outcomes. Most recently, he led the Future of Families Cardiovascular Health Study, a clinical and translational study of 2,000 adults at age 23 years, who had full cardiovascular assessments, including vascular ultrasound, biochemical and epigenetic analysis. This research is confirming that atherosclerosis begins early in at-risk youth, and that persistent changes in DNA methylation can be observed by 9 years of age. His research suggests specific biological pathways through which social disparities affect long-term health.

Stephen Xenakis ’70
Stephen Xenakis is a psychiatrist with an active clinical and consulting practice. He has been a senior adviser to the Department of Defense on a wide range of issues concerning the care and support of service members and their families. Retiring at the rank of brigadier general, he served 28 years in the U.S. Army as a medical corps officer. Xenakis has written widely on medical ethics, military medicine and treatment of detainees, including book chapters and legal reviews, and appears regularly on national radio and television. He is currently working on the clinical applications of artificial intelligence and quantitative electroencephalography (QEEG) to brain injury and neurobehavioral conditions. Xenakis is an adjunct professor at the Uniformed Services University of the Health Sciences. He is a graduate of the University of Maryland School of Medicine.

David Nathan ’90
David Nathan is a Princeton-based psychiatrist, writer, speaker, educator and consultant. He is best known as the founder and past president of Doctors for Drug Policy Reform. Nathan is a distinguished fellow of the American Psychiatric Association and clinical associate professor of psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. He has testified extensively before legislative bodies in states around the country, played a key role in New Jersey’s successful cannabis legalization campaign and was one of two physicians to speak at the U.S. House Judiciary Committee’s first hearing on cannabis legalization in 2019. Currently, he is a leader in the development of evidence-based labeling standards for the regulated cannabis industry, including product warnings and a cannabis information label. He was the principal designer of the International Intoxicating Cannabinoid Product Symbol (ASTM D8441), which has been adopted in several states, including New Jersey.

Elizabeth “Liz” Bogel Ryan ’00
Liz Bogel Ryan is board-certified in both family and addiction medicine. Her circuitous route to medicine included experiences as a paramedic, firefighter, rugby fly half, ocean sailor and jazz saxophonist. She spent her early career as a primary care physician at Federally Qualified Health Centers near Seattle, Washington, and Ithaca, New York, before falling in love with addiction medicine as the founding director of primary care for a nonprofit harm reduction clinic that rapidly became the largest prescriber of medications for opioid use disorder in New York state and cemented her investment in community partnerships and advocacy work. At Boulder Care, she feeds on: lowering barriers to health care; exceptional teamwork; flashes of progress towards the redignification of American medicine; and the vulnerable, messy stories of recovery from use disorders and the systems that have demonized them. She lives with her husband and children in Ithaca and Seattle.

Nabarun Dasgupta ’00
Nabarun Dasgupta is a street drug scientist at the University of North Carolina (UNC). His passion is telling true stories about health with numbers. His multidisciplinary approach draws on large database analytics, qualitative field studies, laboratory drug analysis, randomized trials and community-based interventions. His internationally renowned work in overdose epidemiology and ability to relay complexity with simplicity finds him a regular fixture in news media. He is co-founder of Remedy Alliance/For The People, a groundbreaking nonprofit distributor of the overdose reversal antidote. Prior to UNC, Dasgupta co-founded Epidemico, Inc., a successful Harvard public health informatics startup. At Princeton he was a molecular biology major; he went on to earn graduate degrees from Yale and UNC. In 2023, Dasgupta was named to Time Magazine’s “100 Next” list of emerging global leaders.