Alexandra Tonigan

Alexandra Tonigan is a skilled behavioral health researcher and evaluator with expertise in designing and conducting process, formative, and outcome evaluations for programs addressing substance use and mental health. Dr. Tonigan is adept at capacity building, providing technical assistance, and developing logic models to enhance program effectiveness. She also excels in advanced quantitative methods, including statistical modeling and integrative data analysis, and has extensive experience in data collection through surveys, interviews, focus groups, and administrative reviews.

At RTI International, Dr. Tonigan contributes to NIH- and CDC-funded projects on alcohol epidemiology, opioid use prevention, and suicide prevention. Dr. Alexandra Tonigan is involved in several key projects. She contributes to the NIH HEAL Initiative: Coordinating Center to Support NIDA Preventing Opioid Use Disorder in Older Adolescents and Young Adults, focusing on data harmonization and shared insights across research projects. She also is the Associate Project Director for the Promoting Population Health in Texas through Increased Capacity in Alcohol Epidemiology and the Prevention of Excessive Alcohol Use project, funded by the CDC, aimed at building alcohol epidemiology capacity in Texas by enhancing surveillance and prevention efforts. Additionally, she works on the Integrative Data Analysis of Coping Power: Effects on Adolescent Suicidality project, integrating data from multiple RCTs to assess the program’s impact. Most recently, Dr. Tonigan has begun data harmonization and monitoring and analysis work tasks for the newly funded project PREVENT Suicide Consortium and Data Coordinating Center.

Dr. Tonigan is also supporting evaluation and research in projects such as the Community Violence Intervention (CVI) Roadmap initiative, which synthesizes CVI strategies nationally, and the South Southwest Assistance Technical and Training Consortium (SSW-ATTC), a SAMHSA-funded initiative strengthening the behavioral health workforce across five states. She has further contributed to outcome studies evaluating PTSD and substance use treatments, court-based child welfare interventions, and telemental health services for rural victims of crime.

Dr. Tonigan has over 15 years of experience in behavioral health research and evaluation, including leadership roles at the Institute for Social Research (ISR) at the University of New Mexico, where she evaluated community-based programs addressing substance use, mental health, and criminal justice involved populations. Previously, as a Management Analyst in Denver, she supported evidence-based alternatives to sentencing and substance misuse prevention. Her expertise spans program evaluation, capacity building, and advanced quantitative methods to support underrepresented populations and improve behavioral health outcomes.