Walter Roberts, PhD

I am an Assistant Professor in the Psychiatry Department within Yale School of Medicine. I am a licensed clinical psychologist specializing in substance use treatment, primarily alcohol and tobacco use disorders. My research program uses multiple methodologies to identify the causes and consequences of substance use in humans. My primary research activities focus on developing mobile biosensor platforms that can be used to passively detect and predict substance use behaviors and other health conditions. These systems – built using machine learning and informatics techniques -- are designed to facilitate improved assessment and targeted delivery of interventions in clinical and research settings. In another branch of my research program, I use clinical and epidemiological data to identify risk factors for hazardous alcohol use and other alcohol-related outcomes. I maintain an interest in research ethics and publish conceptual manuscripts on ethical issues in substance use research.