Vice Chancellor for Research
Sandra Ann Brown, professor of psychology and psychiatry, was named the Vice Chancellor for Research at UC San Diego in December 2010. As such, she oversees the Office of Research Affairs, which is charged with creating opportunities, enhancing the research experience, developing tools and training to improve research administration, and supporting and promoting university innovations.
The office collaborates with or oversees the campus Organized Research Units, Office of Innovation and Commercialization, Animal Care, Animal Welfare, Contracts and Grants, Research Ethics, Government Research Relations, University-Industry Relations, Conflict of Interest, Stem Cell Research, Postdoctoral and Visiting Scholars programs, and Research Communications.
Under her leadership, UC San Diego has achieved yearly billion-dollar investments in research and has maintained the university’s top-five ranking as one of the nation’s premier public research universities. She has also designed a major transformation of research-related processes, saving researchers valuable resources and time in a competitive funding environment.
In 2015, she launched the Office of Innovation and Commercialization to accelerate UC San Diego related start-up companies. She serves on the Board of Directors of BIOCOM and CleanTech San Diego, and the APLU’s Council on Research
Dr. Brown is a Distinguished Professor in two UC San Diego departments: Psychology and Psychiatry in the School of Medicine. Her pioneering studies of cognitive features of youth addiction and adolescent development have led to 26 federally funded grants including the current National Consortium on Alcohol and Neurodevelopment in Adolescence (NCANDA) and Adolescent Brain Cognitive Development (ABCD), which is the largest longitudinal study of youth brain development ever funded by NIH. In addition to over 300 peer reviewed publications and one book (Adolescent Substance Abuse, Oxford Press), she has served as President of the Society of Addiction Psychology and on the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association and Research Society on Alcoholism. She has also simultaneously directed the development of clinical, education and research activities as the Chief of Psychology at the Veterans Affair Health Services System in San Diego.
She earned her Ph.D. in clinical psychology at Wayne State University in 1981, and is licensed as a psychologist by the California Board of Psychology.