David Awadalla

David is a Public Health Advisor with SAMHSA’s Office of Recovery (OR), where he leads the office’s criminal legal system, harm reduction, collegiate recovery, and peer certification efforts. David also serves as the Project Officer for the Peer Recovery Center of Excellence, co-leads SAMHSA’s national harm reduction technical assistance efforts, and supports agency and national collaboration across the continuum of harm reduction, prevention, and recovery. David led development of SAMHSA’s National Model Standards for Peer Support Certification, called for in President Biden’s 2022 Unity Agenda, and previously worked with CSAP’s Office of Prevention Innovation. David also identifies as someone in recovery. After struggling with challenges related to substance use and mental health for close to a decade—ranging from overdose, felony convictions, jail time, and a multi-year prison sentence– David was privileged enough to access crucial harm reduction services, life-saving treatment, medications for opioid use disorder, and a robust recovery support system. As a result, David went on to complete his bachelor’s degree in public health at the University of Georgia in 2015 despite multiple suspensions and earned his Master of Social Work at the University of Michigan in 2018. David is always seeking to elevate the voices of people with lived and living experience into his professional responsibilities and utilizes his own to enhance programs and policies across SAMHSA.