Community and Behavioral Health Seminar Series
November 17 at 12:10 pm – 1:00 pm PST
Multicomponent Therapeutics to Address Heterogenous Neuroclinical Needs of Addiction Treatment
November 17, 2026
12:10 – 1:00 p.m. PST
HERB 432 & Zoom
Speaker
Sterling McPherson, PhD
Vice Dean for Research, WSU College of Medicine
Dr. McPherson is a Professor and Vice Dean for Research. He is also the Director of the Program of Excellence in Addictions Research (PEAR) at the Washington State University Elson S. Floyd College of Medicine. Within PEAR, he is the Head and Principal Investigator of the Analytics and Psychopharmacology Laboratory (APPL). He has secured more than $35 million in grants and contracts as PI and another $45 million as a Co-I. Most of this funding has come from NIH (11 different institutes/centers) and 16 other agencies. He is involved in multiple research projects ranging from basic human toxicology to spatial epidemiology to the health economics of new therapeutics. He has led several therapeutic development focused projects (e.g., Phase I/II trials) and has significant clinical research experience having successfully recruited participants with alcohol, opioid, stimulant, and tobacco use disorders. Currently, his primary area of foci is on the leveraging contingency management in combination with putative pharmacotherapies for alcohol, alcohol and tobacco combined, and methamphetamine and opioid use combined. Additionally, he is also working with three companies on advancing technology platform to improve buprenorphine/naloxone adherence, and naloxone carriage rates and use.
He has published more than 150 peer-reviewed research articles in these domains and is a standing panel member and Chairperson for NIH study sections and several other sponsors. He has reviewed for more than 40 journals and either is or has been on the Editorial Boards of Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, Journal of Cannabis Use Research, Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports, American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and Addiction. Currently, he is a Senior Editor and Deputy Statistical Editor at Addiction, Associate Editor (Human Psychopharmacology) at the American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, and Associate Editor at Drug and Alcohol Dependence Reports. He has partnered with seven different industry sponsors to pursue technology-enhanced addiction treatment platforms and advance the commercialization of novel therapeutics. Lastly, he is dedicated to international research with active collaborations across more than seven different countries.