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Biography
Dr. Delisa Brown is a licensed psychologist and Assistant Professor in the Addiction Sciences Division of the Department of Psychiatry and Behavioral Sciences at the Medical University of South Carolina (MUSC). She received her Ph.D. in Counseling Psychology from Howard University in 2018 and completed her predoctoral psychology internship and an NIAAA-funded postdoctoral fellowship at MUSC. She joined the MUSC faculty in 2021.
Dr. Brown’s research focuses on understanding how race-related stress, racial trauma, and other contextual factors contribute to alcohol and other substance use outcomes, particularly among Black and African American adults and populations disproportionately affected by health inequities. Her work examines psychological, physiological, and behavioral mechanisms, including stress reactivity, craving, trauma-related symptoms, and racial identity, that may influence risk, resilience, and treatment outcomes. She uses a range of methods, including ecological momentary assessment, human laboratory paradigms, psychophysiological measurement, neuroimaging, and community-engaged research, to understand these processes in participants’ daily lives and in controlled experimental settings. The long-term goal of her research is to inform the development and implementation of culturally responsive, evidence-based interventions for alcohol use disorder, posttraumatic stress disorder, racial trauma, and other co-occurring conditions.
Dr. Brown is the Principal Investigator of an NIAAA-funded Career Development Award (K23) examining how race-related stress and trauma affect stress reactivity, alcohol craving, and alcohol use among Black and African American adults with alcohol use disorder. She also collaborates on interdisciplinary studies evaluating integrated behavioral and pharmacological treatments for co-occurring alcohol use disorder and posttraumatic stress disorder, factors that influence engagement in psychosocial treatment among Black and African American Veterans with chronic pain, and school-based interventions designed to reduce inequities in youth mental health outcomes. In addition, she contributes to community-engaged addiction research through the NIDA Clinical Trials Network, with an emphasis on strengthening partnerships among researchers, community stakeholders, and populations that have historically been underrepresented in clinical research.