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Sandra Brown

Distinguished Professor

Sandra A. Brown, Ph.D. is Distinguished Professor in the Departments of Psychology and Psychiatry at UC San Diego. Dr. Brown is internationally recognized for her developmentally focused alcohol and drug research. Her research yielded pioneering information on adolescent addiction, relapse among youth, and long-term outcomes of youth who have experienced alcohol and drug problems. She is the past President of Division 50 (Addictions) of the American Psychological Association, is on the executive board of numerous scientific organizations, and has over 35 grants and 350 publications. She is a fellow of multiple divisions of the American Psychological Association, and has received numerous national awards for her research, mentoring and service.  She is involved in addiction prevention and intervention at national and international levels, and helped lead NIAAA’s effort to establish national screening and early intervention guidelines for youth. She currently Co-directs the National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) as well as the Coordinating Center of the Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD) Study, which is the largest longitudinal study of youth development ever funded by NIH.

  •  RA Zucker and SA Brown (Eds), The Oxford Handbook of Adolescent Substance Abuse (2019). New York: Oxford University Press.

  • Zhao, Sullivan EV, Honnorat N, Adeli E, Podhajsky S, De Bellis MD, Voyvodic J, Nooner KB, Baker FC, Colrain IM, Tapert SF, Brown SA, Thompson WK, Nagel BJ, Clark DB, Pfefferbaum A, Pohl KM (2021). Association of heavy drinking with deviant fiber tract development in frontal brain systems in adolescents. JAMA Psychiatry Dec 30: e204064. PMCID: PMC7774050

  • Cummins K, Brumback T, Chung T, Moore R, Henthorn T, Eberson S, Lopez A, Sarkissyan T, Nooner K, Brown SA, Tapert SF (2021). Frequent continuous mobile assessment of health behaviors in a multi-year study: acceptability, validity, and engagement with mNCANDA. J Med Internet Res 9(2): e24472. PMCID: PMC7904399

  • Infante MA, Eberson SC, Zhang Y, Brumback T, Brown SA, Colrain IM, Baker FC, Clark DB, De Bellis M, Goldston D, Nagel BJ, Nooner KB, Zhao Q, Pohl KM, Sullivan EV, Pfefferbaum A, Tapert SF, Thompson WK (2021). Adolescent binge drinking is associated with accelerated decline of gray matter volume. Cerebral Cortex 32(12): 2611-2620. doi:10.1093/cercor/bhab368. PMCID: PMC9201595

  • Pelham WE, Tapert SF, Zúñiga ML, Thompson WK, Wade NE, Gonzalez MR, Patel H, Baker FC, Dowling GJ, Van Rinsveld AM, Baskin-Sommers A, Kiss O, & Brown SA (2023). Pandemic-related changes in the prevalence of early adolescent alcohol and drug use, 2020-2021: Data from a multisite cohort study. Journal of Adolescent Health May 4: S1054-139X(23)00150-7. doi: 10.1016/j.jadohealth.2023.02.040. PMCID: PMC10186567

Updated September 2023