Justin Strickland, PhD

Assistant Professor

Justin Strickland, Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine. Dr. Strickland is a behavioral pharmacologist with expertise in the experimental evaluation of psychoactive drugs of varying drug classes. His research focuses on the use of behavioral economics as a theoretical framework to address issues of public health significance to include addiction and sexual health. This work applies a translational pipeline of preclinical animal research, human laboratory assessment, and clinical trials to evaluate choice and decision-making processes at the intersection of the self (e.g., genetic predisposition, reinforcement history) and setting (e.g., environmental cues, alternative reinforcers). Examples of recent research includes the interaction of expectancy and nicotine dose manipulations on cigarette abuse liability and role of behavioral economic decision-making in social context driven heavy alcohol use. Dr. Strickland is also contributing to clinical trials in the CPCR, where he is interested in the behavioral mechanisms underlying psychedelic drug effects and treatment efficacy. Dr. Strickland has authored over 85 scientific and scholarly publications and received funding from the National Institutes of Health/National Institute on Drug Abuse and National Science Foundation for his work.