Kicking off this year's Brain Awareness Week, Dr. Jennifer Tourville from the UT Institute for Public Service will deliver a guest lecture on the emergence of opioid misuse in East Tennessee and its implications on communities in the region. Students attending this lecture will learn about intersections between sociology and psychopharmacology, developing an improved framework for how an emergency issue in Tennessee healthcare emerged in the first place.

In her early career as a pediatric nurse practitioner, Dr. Tourville treated newborns and children in primary care settings. She was then appointed as faculty in UT's College of Nursing for several years, where she taught newborn and pediatric care and mentored student research related to neonatal opioid withdrawal syndrome. She currently serves as the Executive Director for the UT Institute for Public Service SMART Initiative and focuses all of her efforts on substance use programs in TN.

Brain Awareness Week is an annual event held during the second week of March and organized by the Dana Foundation to recognize innovations and exciting topics in neuroscience. Each year, organizations across the world center their own Brain Awareness Week around various themes. This, the Advancement of Neuroscience at UTK has decided to develop programming around the neurological basis of addiction and its greater implications in the greater Knoxville community, providing a series of workshops, guest lectures, and social events to bring light to this issue.