Biography

I’m an Assistant Professor of Psychology (clinical science area) at University of California, Berkeley. I run the Clinical Research on Externalizing and Addiction Mechanisms (C.R.E.A.M.) Lab. My program of research is dedicated to a comprehensive, ontogenetic account of the etiology of addiction. By this, I mean that I want to understand the spectrum of risk for addiction all the way from liabilities for addiction - dispositional factors the predate use of substances - as well as consequences of chronic, heavy use that maintain a Substance Use Disorder. Two of the dispositional liabilities I’ve spent most time working on thus far are disinhibition and reward sensitivity. I particularly have interests in (1) how these dispositional traits may interact to predict alcohol and substance use disorders, (2) bridging between- and within-subject mechanisms of risk for problematic consumption using ambulatory assessment techniques, and (3) evaluating and improving the generalizability and applicability of models of addiction to minoritized and socioeconomically-disadvantaged populations.

I enjoy all things psychological science, and am also interested in broad psychopathology classification issues (e.g., very pro-Hierachical Taxonomy of Psychopathology [HiTOP]). I have particular expertise in electroencephalography/event-related potentials (EEG/ERPs), behavioral genetics, and advanced quantitative methods.

Note: I will be accepting a graduate student in the Clinical Science area at UC Berkeley for the Fall 2024 cycle. See https://joynerlab.berkeley.edu/prospective-graduate-students/ for more information for prospective applicants specifically.