Dear Public Health Community,

I write to announce that Peter M. Monti, Ph.D., Donald G. Millar Distinguished Professor of Alcohol and Addiction Studies and director of the Center for Alcohol and Addiction Studies (CAAS) in the Brown School of Public Health, has decided to step down from the role of center director effective September 1, 2022. After over twenty years as the leader of CAAS, he plans to return, full-time, to his highly productive research career as professor of behavioral and social sciences.

Peter received his Ph.D. from the University of Rhode Island and shortly thereafter began his career at Brown University in 1975 with an internship at Butler Hospital. He advanced through the academic ranks as assistant professor of psychiatry and human behavior in 1976 to full professorship in 1988. He has held several leadership positions throughout his tenure, both in the Department of Psychiatry and Human Behavior and at the School of Public Health. Peter took the helm as director of CAAS in 2000 and led the newly formed Division of Behavioral and Social Sciences in the Department of Community Health as chair from 2005-2011.

Peter has devoted his career to understanding the bio-behavioral mechanisms that underlie addictive behavior, as well as its prevention and treatment. He has been a prolific author, publishing over 400 papers and several books, monographs, and chapters focusing on the areas of assessment, mechanisms, early intervention, and treatment. His most recent work has been in the area of alcohol and HIV. His contributions and lasting impact to the field of addiction are difficult to overstate. Peter exemplifies the School’s “learn by doing” philosophy and has trained hundreds of scholars, many of whom have gone on to make major contributions to the addictions field.

Peter has been the recipient of many honors for his mentorship, as well as for his scholarship. He has received Distinguished Research Achievement Awards from several organizations including the Research Society on Alcoholism (2006), the National Institute of Health Mendelson Award (2018), and, most recently, from Brown University (2020). He brought two NIH center grants to the School and has led NIAAA’s flagship training grant for the past 21 years. He served for many years on NIAAA’s Council and he is a past president of the Research Society on Alcoholism.

It is hard for me to adequately acknowledge Peter’s contributions to the school and his extraordinary leadership at CAAS. I am personally grateful to Peter for being a great colleague to me and so many others during this difficult period. We will soon launch a national search for his successor though his shoes will be very hard to fill.

Please join me in thanking Peter for his extraordinary contributions to science, public health, and to our community.

Sincerely,

Ashish K. Jha, MD, MPH
Dean, School of Public Health