Jennifer Read

Jennifer Read is a SUNY Distinguished Professor and Chair of the Department of Psychology in the College of Arts and Sciences at the University at Buffalo. Her research focuses on the intersection of trauma, PTSD, and substance use, particularly alcohol and cannabis, with an emphasis on young adults and college populations. She leads the UB Alcohol Research Laboratory and is actively involved in federally funded research projects from NIAAA and NIDA.

Her research interests include:

• Psychosocial determinants of hazardous alcohol and drug use
• Comorbidity of PTSD and alcohol use disorder
• Sexual assault and alcohol-involved victimization
• Development and validation of assessment tools (e.g., YAACQ, MACQ)
• Geospatial and environmental risk factors for substance use
• Intervention development, particularly friend-based and motivational approaches

The most recent articles show a strong trend toward real-time, event-level, and ecological momentary assessment methods, with growing emphasis on affective cognition, coping flexibility, and social context in trauma-related drinking. Her work increasingly integrates meta-analytic and systematic review methods to consolidate evidence across studies.

Her scientific awards include being named a SUNY Distinguished Professor, one of the highest academic honors in the State University of New York system.

Dr. Read advises a number of graduate students and early-career researchers, including Megan Zaso, Tessa Jenzer, and Rebecca Shaw. She has received grant funding for multiple projects, including R01 AA016105 and R34AA027046, focusing on sexual assault prevention and trauma-alcohol comorbidity. Her work often involves interdisciplinary collaboration across psychology, public health, and neuroscience.

She leads the UB Alcohol Research Laboratory, which conducts laboratory-based, survey, and longitudinal studies on substance use and trauma. The lab emphasizes both basic mechanisms and applied intervention development, particularly for high-risk populations such as college women and trauma survivors.