Project Title: Targeting High-Risk Drinking Days with Mobile Treatment for Spanish-Speaking Patients
Position: Associate Research Scientist
Institution: Yale University
Funding NIH Institute/Center: National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism
Project ID: K99AA031032
Bryan Benitez, PhD, grew up in a second-generation Cuban American family in Miami. During his teenage years, he was fascinated by how the fictional detective, Sherlock Holmes, used inductive and deductive reasoning to make predictions about other people’s behaviors and motivations. Following these interests, he earned his BA in psychology and religious studies from Northwestern University, where he completed a psychology honor’s thesis comparing moral attitudes towards substance use among diverse religious groups. He then earned his MA and PhD in clinical psychology at the University of South Florida. In his graduate research, he used mobile technology to measure and influence hourly fluctuations in alcohol expectancies that preceded real-world drinking. Dr. Benitez completed his clinical internship and postdoctoral research at the Yale School of Medicine, where he is investigating how computerized cognitive behavioral therapy influences daily alcohol and substance use among patients with addiction. He applies advanced Bayesian statistical analyses to clinical trial datasets to test complex hypotheses about treatment effects. His clinical practice and research at Yale have focused on addiction treatments for Hispanics who primarily speak Spanish. While serving on his graduate department’s diversity committee, Dr. Benitez helped coordinate and conduct a multiday training event funded by the American Psychological Association to promote underrepresented undergraduates’ pursuit of careers in psychology. He also served on the inaugural diversity committee of the Research Society on Alcohol and provides mentorship to underrepresented minority graduate students interested in addiction and other health sciences.