Dr. Robert Balster is the Luther A. Butler Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at Virginia Commonwealth University, Medical College of Virginia campus in Richmond, Virginia USA.
Dr. Balster is an Associate Coordinator for the VCU site for the U.S. State Department Humphrey Fellowship Program in Substance Abuse Prevention, Treatment and Policy (https://psychology.vcu.edu/humphrey/) and a co-founder and co-director of the International Programme in Addiction Studies (https://ipas.vcu.edu/), an online master’s and certificate degree program. He is a Fellow of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), and the American Psychological Association. He is a Past‑President of the CPDD and a former member of the WHO Expert Advisory Panel on Drug Dependence (Dependence Liability Evaluation).
From 1998 to 2010 he was the Editor-in-Chief of the international journal Drug and Alcohol Dependence and Vice-President of the International Society of Addiction Journal Editors from 2008-2010. Previous appointments include Chair of the Drug Abuse Clinical and Behavior Study Section at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), Chair of the FDA Drug Abuse Advisory Committee, and Chair of the Board of Scientific Affairs of the American Psychological Association.
He is the recipient of the CPDD Nathan B. Eddy Award for career contributions in addiction research, the Brady-Schuster Award and the Award for Distinguished Service to Psychological Science from the American Psychological Association, and the Excellence in Mentorship award from the NIDA International Program. In addition to publishing more than 285 papers in scientific journals, Dr. Balster has edited two books and authored over 50 book chapters. The principal areas of Dr. Balster’s interests include psychopharmacology, substance abuse, evidence-based practice, regulatory policy and global mental health. From 2011-2012, Dr. Balster served as a Jefferson Science Fellow with the Global Health Bureau at the US Agency for International Development and served for many years as a Science Advisor for the USAID Office of Health, Infectious Diseases and Nutrition.