Alex Nelson is a fourth-year student completing his BS in Biology and Neuroscience and is looking to attend medical school next year. He worked alongside Dr. Joshua Gwon in the College of Nursing and Dr. Han-Joo Lee in the Department of Psychology for over two years, beginning in the summer of 2020. Alex now serves as the lead research assistant in Dr. Lee’s Anxiety Disorders Laboratory (ADL). The rise of electronic nicotine delivery systems over the past decade continues to concern public health officials, as they not only reckon with the emerging evidence characterizing long-term health outcomes but also with the severe limitations of treatment strategies. From his work on eye-tracking pilot investigations, Alex seeks to answer several questions: 1) Why are 18–24-year-olds such a vulnerable demographic for tobacco marketing and, particularly, e-cigarettes? 2) What physiological and psychological changes make cessation so challenging for these users? 3) How can an intervention target these changes efficaciously? Addiction psychology is rooted, in part, by the phenomenon of attentional bias, or when a user’s attention elevates to the presence of an addictive substance in their environment. Alex facilitated the development of a mobile app that trains e-cigarette users to redirect their attention away from their devices, thus encouraging cessation – a form of psychotherapy known as attentional bias modification. This work has given Alex presentation opportunities from Wisconsin to Colorado and even a publication in the Journal of Rural Health. As he works toward his thesis these final two semesters, Alex will be studying the psychophysiogical, autonomic forces that underly attentional bias. These ADL-based investigations are to explore arousal, marked by measurable increases in heart-rate variability and skin conductance, that serve to link an emotional response to its physiological origins in hopes of better understanding this form of addictive behavior. After graduating, Alex intends to pursue an MD/MPH dual degree in order to apply a similar bio-psycho-social approach to patient care. When he’s not in the ADL, you can find Alex tending to the garden beds around campus. Email: nelso624@uwm.edu.