Innovative Technology in Addictions Counseling

Jolie Daigle, Ph.D., LPC is a professor at the University of Georgia. She received her doctoral degree in counselor education from the University of New Orleans.

Her areas of research include the clinical preparation of school counselors and incorporating evidence-based practices in the delivery systems of comprehensive school counseling programs. Her work is validated by external funding and she has secured over $3,000,000 from the Health Resources and Services Administration to expand and enhance the behavioral health workforce.

Daigle is the recipient of the 2014 ACES Counseling Creativity and Innovation Award and is a Fellow with the American Counseling Association.

Sycarah Fisher, Ph.D., is a school psychologist and an assistant professor in the Department of Educational Psychology at the University of Georgia.

Fisher’s research focuses on the implementation of school-based substance use interventions and the identification of risk and protective factors related to minority substance use. She is particularly interested in the use of technology to improve the implementation of evidence-based practices to address adolescent substance use and reduce racial disparities.

Fisher also provides trainings to school districts across the country as a substance use interventions expert for the U.S. Department of Education’s Readiness and Emergency Management for Schools Technology Assistance (REMS TA) Center.

Amanda Giordano, Ph.D., LPC, is an associate professor in the counselor education and supervision program at the University of Georgia. She specializes in both chemical and behavioral addictions counseling.

Giordano received the Addictions/Offender Educator Excellence Award from the International Association of Addictions and Offender Counselors. She has experience as an editorial board member for the Journal of Addictions and Offender Counseling, Journal of Counseling and Development, and Counseling and Values.

Giordano is dedicated to raising public awareness about addiction and frequently conducts conference presentations, webinars, and trainings related to addictions counseling.

In Kee Kim, Ph.D., is an assistant professor of computer science at the University of Georgia.

Kim completed his Ph.D. in computer science in 2018 at the University of Virginia. His main research areas are computer systems, cloud computing, and edge computing for real-world IoT applications (e.g., smart home).

As a member of this interdisciplinary research team, Kim is specifically interested in developing novel computer systems and sensing technologies to protect students from various types of deleterious addictions like self-harming and chemical abuse.

Jaewoo Lee, Ph.D., is an assistant professor in the computer science department at the University of Georgia.

His current research focuses on developing privacy-preserving optimization algorithms for training machine learning models.

Lee has published many articles on this topic at top-tier computer science conferences and served as a reviewer for many journals and funding agencies such as the National Science Foundation.

George McMahon, Ph.D., is an assistant professor and the program Coordinator for the counselor education and supervision programs in the Department of Counseling and Human Development Services at the University of Georgia.

He has been a counselor educator since 2005, focusing on preparing future school counselors and school counselor educators, and developing innovative models of school counseling and school counselor preparation.

McMahon developed the Ecological School Counseling Model, is a Fellow with the Ronald H. Frederickson Center for School Counseling Outcome Research and Evaluation, and is the founder and co-coordinator of the Innovative School Counseling Research Network.