ASAM’s 2026 Awards Honor Outstanding Addiction Medicine Professionals

The awards include the ASAM Presidential Award, the John P. McGovern MD Award on Addiction and Society, the Marc Galanter MD Annual Award, the Promotion of Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Justice in Addiction Medicine Award, the Fellowship Directors Award, the Public Policy Award, the Media Award, and the R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Scientist Award.  

ASAM Presidential Award 

Nicholas Athanasiou, MD, MBA, DFASAM  

The ASAM Presidential Award, awarded by the current ASAM president, honors an individual for outstanding dedication and service in addressing addiction issues or promoting education, training or awareness of the specialty of addiction medicine. ASAM President Stephen Taylor, MD, MPH, DFAPA, DFASAM, has selected Dr. Athanasiou for this honor in 2026. Dr. Athanasiou is a supervising mental health psychiatrist with the Los Angeles County Department of Mental Health and a health sciences associate clinical professor with the Department of Psychiatry at UCLA. As chair of the ASAM Publications Council and editor in chief of The ASAM Weekly, he has helped keep addiction medicine audiences informed of the latest commentary, news, and research shaping the field.  

John P. McGovern MD Award on Addiction and Society 

James F. Callahan, DPA 

This award honors an individual who has made highly meritorious contributions to public policy, treatment, research, or prevention, which has increased our understanding of the relationship between addiction and society. The 2026 winner, Dr. Callahan, is a former executive vice president of the American Board of Addiction Medicine (ABAM), the ABAM Foundation, and the former executive vice president and CEO of ASAM. The award recognizes his significant contributions to the Society and his role in helping addiction medicine achieve recognition as a subspecialty by the American Board of Medical Specialties. Dr. Callahan is also a former director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse’s (NIDA) Career Teacher Program for the development of medical school faculty and curricula in addiction medicine, a collaborative program with the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.  

Marc Galanter MD Annual Award (formerly the Annual Award) 

Joshua D. Lee, MD, MSc, FASAM 

 This award is given to an individual for exceptional contributions to both the biological aspects of addiction treatment and the recovery capital available to patients. Dr. Lee is an addiction medicine clinician and researcher focused on alcohol and opioid use disorder medications in primary care and criminal legal settings. He has worked extensively in the NIDA Clinical Trials Network and the Justice Community Overdose Innovation Network. Dr. Lee is a professor in the Department of Population Health and the Department of Medicine and Division of General Internal Medicine and Clinical Innovation at NYU Grossman School of Medicine. Since 2011, he has served as the program director of NYU’s Addiction Medicine Fellowship. 

Promotion of Inclusion, Diversity, Equality and Justice in Addiction Medicine Award 

Donald “Bailey” Miles, MD, MPH, FACP 

 This award honors an individual who, through their treatment, research, or work in the area of injustice related to addiction care, has improved the lives of individuals with addiction disorders who have been the object of discrimination, injustice, exclusion or persecution. Dr. Miles is an internist and addiction medicine physician currently serving as acting chief of primary care at the Chinle Comprehensive Health Care Facility of the Indian Health Service in Chinle, Arizona. His work focuses on integrating evidence-based addiction treatment into primary care and improving access to care in rural and Native communities. He is board certified in internal medicine and addiction medicine. 

Fellowship Directors Award 

Carolyn Chan, MD, MHS-MEd 

The Fellowship Directors Award honors those who have demonstrated outstanding training in the evaluation, treatment, research, and teaching of substance use disorders. Dr. Chan is the program director of the University of Cincinnati Addiction Medicine Fellowship, where she has developed a fellowship that prepares physicians to deliver evidence-based, compassionate care for patients with substance use disorders across care settings. She has also lent her training skills to ASAM, where she currently serves as chair of the Medical Education Skills Committee. In addition, Dr. Chan co-founded the Hoxworth Addiction Recovery Clinic, a resident-run clinic integrated within primary care that provides experiential training for internal medicine residents in addiction treatment.  

Public Policy Award  

Shawn Ryan, MD, MBA, FASAM 

This award recognizes individuals who have effectively advanced public policies that promote the health of Americans, especially persons with addiction; addiction medicine physicians; the education of physicians and medical trainees regarding substance use and addiction; or recognition of the practice of addiction medicine. Dr. Ryan previously served as chair of ASAM’s Payer Relations and Legislative Advocacy Committees. In those roles, he helped advance ASAM’s advocacy agenda and achieve key legislative wins, including passage of the SUPPORT for Patients and Communities Act, the Mainstreaming Addiction Treatment (MAT) Act, and the Medication Access and Training Expansion (MATE) Act. Dr. Ryan is a board-certified addiction specialist and board-certified emergency physician, and the current president of BrightView. 

Media Award 

Aneri Pattani 

This award recognizes an individual for a newspaper, magazine, television, radio or website story, column, or program that improves the public's understanding of addiction, treatment, recovery, or the profession of addiction medicine. Aneri Pattani is a senior correspondent at KFF Health News, a national nonprofit news outlet, where she reports on a range of public health topics, including mental health and substance use. Notably, her multi-year series about how state and local governments are spending opioid settlement funds made her a finalist for the Livingston Award and the Scripps Howard Award. 

R. Brinkley Smithers Distinguished Scientist Award 

John F. Kelly, PhD, ABPP 

This award honors an individual who has made highly meritorious contributions in advancing the scientific understanding of addiction, its prevention and treatment. Dr. Kelly is an internationally recognized clinical investigator who has led National Institutes of Health (NIH) and other funded studies advancing evidence-based care within recovery-oriented systems. He is the founding director of the Recovery Research Institute at Massachusetts General Hospital and the Elizabeth R. Spallin Professor of Psychiatry in Addiction Medicine at Harvard Medical School. He also serves as chief of the Division of Addiction Treatment and Prevention across the Mass General Brigham Academic Medical Centers Department of Psychiatry.  

ASAM President Dr. Taylor will present the awards to recipients during the ASAM Annual Awards and Updates session of the Annual Conference.