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Linda Spear, Ph.D., received the 2008 Bowles Lectureship Award on September 22 on UNC Campus. The award honors distinguished researchers who have made significant contributions to our understanding of the causes, prevention and/or treatment of alcoholism and alcohol abuse. Bowles Award 2008

Introduced in 1997, the annual Bowles Lectureship Award honors the best and the brightest in alcohol research. Spear presented a seminar to UNC research faculty and students entitled, “Adolescence: Neurobehavioral Characteristics, Differential Alcohol Sensitivities and Intake.” In addition to an Award plaque, Spear received a $5,000 prize.

Spear’s research is behavioral neuroscience and focuses on how prenatal drugs such as cocaine and ethanol, along with environmental factors, can influence subsequent behavior. It has provided a critical data resource for policy decisions by the Food and Drug Administration and the Environmental Protection Agency. Her other interests include developmental psychobiology, psychopharmacology, and neurobehavioral teratology.

Spear joined the Binghamton faculty in 1976, after completing post-doctoral work in the Department of Neuroscience at the University of Florida, where she also earned her master’s and PhD. She earned her bachelor’s at Western Illinois University.

She has been elected president of three prestigious professional organizations and was a member of the newly established Office of Behavioral and Social Science Research of the National Institutes of Health.