The University of Arkansas for Medical Sciences College of Medicine has invested Ashley Acheson in the Wilbur D. Mills Distinguished Chair in Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Prevention.
This will help him continue research on addiction and prevention.
Acheson is a professor and vice chair for research for the UAMS department of psychiatry. He is a behavioral neuroscientist who joined UAMS in October 2016.
Since joining UAMS, Acheson has been awarded over $13 million in National Institutes of Health grants.
His research includes the Family Health Patterns Project, a study aimed at identifying behavioral and biological factors underlying risk for addictions. He also is a principal investigator on the HEALthy Brain and Child Development Study, a study of child brain development.
Endowed chairs are the highest honors of academic excellence that a university can bestow upon its faculty.
A distinguished chair is established with gifts of at least $1.5 million. The money is invested and the interest proceeds used to support the educational, research and clinical activities of the chair holder.
The Wilbur D. Mills Chair in Alcoholism and Drug Abuse Prevention was named in honor of the former U.S. congressman, Wilbur Daigh Mills. The chair was endowed by friends of Mills, corporations, foundations and other organizations who donated funds in his honor to supplement an initial grant by the state.
Mills, of Kensett in White County, became a champion of early prevention and recognition of alcohol and drug abuse following his own battle with addiction.
He was chair of the House Ways and Means Committee, the chief tax-writing committee of the House of Representatives, a post he held longer than any other person. Mills played a large role in the creation of the Medicare and Medicaid programs and was the voice for the Tax Reform Act of 1969. He died May 2, 1992, in Searcy.
Acheson graduated from the University of Wisconsin-Whitewater with a bachelor's degree in psychology and a minor in biology.
He completed his doctoral studies at the University at Buffalo - The State University of New York, earning his Ph.D. in behavioral neuroscience.
Acheson completed his postdoctoral training at the University of Chicago and the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio.
In 2007, he joined the faculty at the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio Department of Psychiatry. At the University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio, he completed a KL2 Research Career Development Scholar Program and developed a research program examining behavioral and neurobiological risk factors for alcohol and other drug addictions.