Dougherty, Donald M PhD

School of Medicine
Psychiatry
(210) 567-2726
doughertyd@uthscsa.edu

Dr. Dougherty is the William and Marguerite Wurzbach Distinguished Professor in the Division of Alcohol and Drug Abuse within the Department of Psychiatry at The University of Texas Health Science Center at San Antonio. He also serves as the Director of the Neurobehavioral Research Laboratory and Clinic (NRLC) and Deputy Chair for Research. He completed his graduate training in psychology at Ohio University and a National Institute for Drug Abuse sponsored postdoctoral research fellowship at The University of Texas Health Science Center at Houston (UTHSCH). After completing his training, Dr. Dougherty joined the faculty and remained at UTHSCH, where the NRLC group was founded. After 12 years at UTHSCH, Dr. Dougherty and the NRLC research team moved to Wake Forest University Health Science Center where he became Professor and Vice Chair for Research in the Department of Psychiatry. During his tenure as Vice Chair for Research, the Department of Psychiatry made significant progress
toward the development of an interdisciplinary translational research program, which was evidenced by substantial increases in support from the National Institutes of Health and private donors. Seeing a great potential for expanding a translational research program to include interactions with community leaders within San Antonio, Dr. Dougherty, and the NRLC research team, returned to The University of Texas Health Science System in 2007.


Dr. Dougherty`s research interests are focused on understanding impulsive behaviors, with a primary emphasis on problems associated with substance abuse and suicidality. Current projects include the use of transdermal alcohol monitoring in conjunction with contigency managment for binge drinking, examining how drug abuse and early stressful life events adversely affect adolescent development of impulse control as well as their relationship to the development of other adolescent psychopathology. Additionally, his interests include the identification of biological and behavioral risk factors for child and adult psychopathology. As part of these interests, Dr. Dougherty and his colleagues have developed behavioral software paradigms for objectively assessing underlying mechanisms of different types of cognitive impulsivity. These paradigms have been validated in numerous studies and are freely available to other researchers. The long-term goals of the NRLC are to use information gathered from their research program to inform the development of better treatment and community-based substance abuse prevention
programs. Lastly, Dr. Dougherty has strong interest in developing research collaborations, training pre- and post-doctoral students, and mentoring junior faculty.