Andre Der-Avakian is Assistant Professor of Psychiatry at the University of California San Diego (UCSD) and Associate Member of the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ACNP).

He is Principal Investigator on research projects funded by grants from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH) and National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA) and has managed research contracts and collaborations with industry and non-profit organizations. His lab is focused on developing novel cross-species behavioral and neurophysiological assessments of reward, cognition, and other behaviors in rodents relevant to psychiatric disorders, and using those translational measures to facilitate drug discovery efforts for depression, schizophrenia, and substance use disorders.

Andre received his Ph.D. in Neuroscience from the University of Colorado Boulder and he completed a NIMH-sponsored postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Psychiatry at UCSD.