Victor Hesselbrock, PhD

Vice Chair

Professor (PI)

Department of Psychiatry

Research Overview

Dr. Hesselbrock holds the Physicians’ Health Services endowed chair in Addiction Studies and is Principal Investigator and Scientific Director of the Department’s NIAAA funded Alcohol Research Center. A member of the Department since 1978, Dr. Hesselbrock has developed a program of research focused on the identification of psychological and biological factors that contribute to the susceptibility for developing alcohol problems, including dependence. His current projects include a study of the deviance-proness model of alcoholism vulnerability, a study of alcohol dependence phenotypes among Alaskan Natives, and two studies related to the genetics of substance dependence. These include being a co-PI for the Collaborative Study on the Genetics of Alcoholism (COGA) and being an investigator in multi-site studies of the genetics of cocaine and opiate dependence. Dr. Hesselbrock also is chairperson of the Scientific Advisory Committee of the Medical School’s General Clinical Research Center. He serves as an associate editor for Alcoholism: Clinical & Experimental Research, is an assistant editor for Addiction, and is on the editorial boards of several other addictions journals. He has also served on, and chaired, several NIH study sections and is currently a member of the National Advisory Council of the National Institute on Alcoholism and Alcohol Abuse (NIAAA)and the NIH Council of Councils. Dr. Hesselbrock is a past President of the Research Society on Alcoholism (RSA).

Education

Ph.D., Washington University in St. Louis, 1977 (social work)
MSW, University of Texas-Arlington, 1972
B.A., Texas Christian University, 1968 (psychology)

Recent/Selected Publications

PubMed