Eric R. Pedersen

Eric R. Pedersen is an adjunct behavioral scientist at the RAND Corporation. His primary affiliation is with the Keck School of Medicine at the University of Southern California. His research interests are primarily in the areas of young adult/adolescent alcohol use and comorbid mental health disorders. Pedersen has received funding to develop brief, online interventions to reduce alcohol misuse among young adult populations such as college students and recently discharged veterans. He is interested in finding ways to target comorbid Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) and substance use disorders among active duty and young adult veterans, as well as using internet-based methods to help reduce alcohol misuse and promote treatment engagement among non–treatment-seeking young adults. He is also serving as the director of Project ALERT, which is a school-based drug prevention program for middle school youth developed at RAND. He is currently examining how cannabis use among young adults has changed during the time of recreational legalization. He trained at the VA San Diego, where he focused on rotations in empirically supported interventions for PTSD and dual diagnoses (i.e., comorbid substance abuse and mental health disorders). Pedersen earned his Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Washington.