Ms. Blyum is originally from Kazakhstan. She is currently obtaining her PhD degree at SDSU/UCSD Joint Doctoral Program in Interdisciplinary Research on Substance Use, CA, USA. Her dissertation will focus on resilience to alcohol use disorders in transitional age youth. Her research interest also lies in the interface between substance use disorders and delinquency, intersectional stigma, associated with substance use disorders and co-occurring diseases, such as HIV. In this regard, she serves as a Research Associate for the study on intersectional stigma intervention targets for People Who Inject Drugs (PWIDs) in a High-Risk International Setting. As a professional in the field of substance use education, Ms. Blyum:
She continues her extensive training in the field expanding skills in evidence-based interventions and techniques and is interested in incorporating the Body-Oriented and Dance Therapies and Pilates into person-centered strength-based approaches to recovery and rehabilitation processes. She is an alumna of E. Muskie Graduate Fellowship and holds BAs in Foreign Languages and Physical Training and MS in Urban Policy Analysis and Management from The New School, NYC.
While pursuing research, Ms. Blyum had also been serving as a Project Coordinator and Trainer at the University of California San Diego – Ukraine and Central Asia Addiction Technology Transfer Center (UCS ATTC) funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) and the President’s Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief (PEPFAR). In this capacity, during the three-year project implementation, she had been directly involved in building competencies and capacities in the addiction treatment, mental health, primary health care and HIV care workforce.
In 2014-2017 she served as a Senior Program Officer for Central Asia and Afghanistan at the Colombo Plan International Center for Credentialing and Education of Addiction Professionals (ICCE). In this capacity she has been instrumental in the implementation of the mission to professionalize the drug demand reduction workforce work internationally, particularly in Central Asian Region, Pakistan and Afghanistan. The Training of National Trainers on the Universal Treatment Curriculum (UTC) in Kazakhstan, in particular, was initiated in the framework of joint Colombo Plan-UNODC ROCA project and under Ms. Blyum’s project coordination. Continuing to support international agenda of professionalizing drug demand reduction workforce, she collaborated as a trainer with Los Angeles County Department of Health Services, Los Angeles Centers for Alcohol & Drug Abuse (LACADA) and other treatment providers and collaborates International Consortium of Universities for Drug Demand Reduction (ICUDDR) to facilitate integration of UTC in universities in Egypt and Kazakhstan. She has been instrumental in facilitating the process of first university in Kostanay, Kazakhstan obtaining the status of the Universal Treatment and Prevention (UTC, UPC) curricula provider in March 2022. In May 2022, Ms. Blyum has been officially selected by the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP) and the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) into a pool of Global Trainers with the support of the U.S. State Department Bureau of International Narcotics and Law Enforcement (INL).
I am a certified and credentialed Trainer in Drug Demand Reduction field, Doctoral Candidate in Interdisciplinary Research on Substance Use with diverse international and intercultural professional experiences striving to contribute to the global mission of addressing syndemics of substance use disorders, HIV and other co-occurring disorders and reducing intersectional stigma.
