Pacific Institute For Research And Evaluation history

In 1979, Sir Antony teamed with San Francisco businessman James North to establish the Pacific Research Institute.

PIRE pioneered the development of comprehensive community-based prevention, most notably through a program of research at the PIRE Prevention Research Center, supported since 1980 by a series of competitive center grants from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.

Under his leadership, PIRE started the Just Say No Foundation in 1986 and organized the Walk Against Drugs in which 3 million people participated.

In 1996, Doctor Knowlton Johnson, at the time a professor at the University of Louisville, formed Community Systems Research Institute (CSRI) in Louisville, KY with assistance from colleagues from University of Louisville and Spalding University.

Doctor Cohen was the recipient of a Lifetime Career Achievement Award by NASADAD and in 1999 a Career Achievement Award from CSAP for his work with parents and substance abuse prevention.

The PIRE Louisville Center was formally established in March 2000 with Ms.

Both were University of Kentucky Senior Scientists who had joined PIRE in 2005.

She joined PIRE as an Associate Research Scientist in 2006 after earning her Ph.D. in Communication from the University of Kentucky.

Young became PIRE’s Chief Operating Officer and stepped down from her position as PIRE Louisville CD. After the departure of Doctor Zimmerman in 2008, Ms.

Young returned to her former position as Louisville Center Director in 2009.

During her second tenure in this position and until she semi-retired in 2011, the center’s capacity and growth continued as center scientists expanded into research specifically targeting marginalized and high-risk youth populations.

Doctor Melissa Abadi began her tenure as Louisville’s Center Director in October 2019.

Most recently, Doctor Abadi, with guidance from PIRE Board Member Doctor Pebbles Fagan, has founded a PIRE-wide Tobacco Regulatory Science (TRS) Initiative and Workgroup, and led a strategic planning meeting in February 2020 with attendance from all PIRE centers.