The COBRE Center for Addiction and Disease Risk Exacerbation (CADRE) welcomes Eric Pedersen, Ph.D., as part of the CADRE Distinguished Visiting Scholar Series.

Talk Title: Addressing the Behavioral Health Concerns of Veterans Though Brief Digital Interventions
Wednesday, October 21, 2026 | 1:00–2:00 PM
SPH Room 901

Veterans are at particularly high risk for co-occurring alcohol use disorder and mental health conditions, including posttraumatic stress disorder and depression. Despite this need, many veterans do not seek care in formal treatment settings. In this presentation, Dr. Pedersen will discuss barriers that prevent veterans from seeking care and the potential of mobile phone-based interventions to expand access to behavioral health services. He will highlight research from his lab developing and testing mobile programs that address alcohol use alongside related mental health concerns.

Dr. Pedersen is an Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Keck School of Medicine of the University of Southern California (USC). He directs the Prevention, Early Intervention, and Addictions Recovery Lab (PEARL) and serves as Director of Social Behavioral Research in the Institute for Addiction Science at USC.

His NIH-funded research focuses on developing brief, Internet- and mobile phone-based interventions to reduce alcohol misuse and address co-occurring mental health disorders among non-treatment-seeking populations, including recently discharged veterans and young adults. His work aims to reduce barriers to care by reaching individuals outside traditional treatment settings and promoting engagement in follow-up care.

Dr. Pedersen received his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Washington in 2012. He joined the faculty at USC in 2020 after working as a behavioral scientist at RAND from 2012 to 2020.

The CADRE community and colleagues across Brown are invited to attend.