Interdisciplinary Research
on Substance Use

[ faculty ]

All courses, faculty listings, and curricular and degree requirements described herein are subject to change or deletion without notice.

The Joint Doctoral Program (JDP)

The Division of Infectious Diseases and Global Public Health in the Department of Medicine, University of California San Diego (UC San Diego), in conjunction with the School of Social Work, College of Health and Human Services, San Diego State University (SDSU), offers a PhD in the Joint Doctoral Program in Interdisciplinary Research on Substance Use. The program is among the first in the nation to uniquely focus on substance use—broadly defined—including cutting-edge research related to the multilevel determinants and interventional policy and program approaches designed to ameliorate substance use-related harms in affected communities along the substance use prevention, harm reduction, treatment, and recovery continuum.

Students will acquire advanced skills and knowledge in theory, current research, research methods, and analytic approaches related to the scientific understanding of substance use and related problems. As such, students’ studies will examine the etiology and epidemiology of substance use and the related health needs of substance-involved individuals and affected communities.

Students will spend the first year of study at SDSU, the second at UC San Diego, and work with faculty from both campuses during their predissertation and dissertation work.

Information regarding admission is found in the SDSU requirements for doctoral degrees and at the program web site: https://socialwork.sdsu.edu/irsu/prospective.

PhD Time Limit Policies

All time limits for this program start when a student first registers in this program. Students must be advanced to candidacy by the end of three years. Total university support to students in this program cannot exceed four years. Total registered time in this program cannot exceed six years. The normative time is four years.

Requirements for the Doctor of Philosophy Degree

Admissions Requirements

Applicants to the JDP must hold a master’s degree from an accredited (US or equivalent) college or university from a related social or behavioral science or professional program (e.g., social work, public health, psychology, sociology, anthropology, economics). It is expected that applicants will have minimum grade point averages of 3.2 (undergraduate) and 3.5 (graduate), and sufficient research experience (e.g., peer-reviewed publication record and prior course work in graduate-level statistics and research methodology) to successfully complete degree requirements in a timely manner. GRE scores are not required for IRSU JDP applicants.

Language Requirement

Students who speak English as a second language will be required to demonstrate proficiency in spoken and written English through TOEFL exam. Contact Education Testing Services (ETS) and request that your scores be sent to UC San Diego electronically at institution code 4836 and SDSU at institution code 4682.

Course Requirements

All students must complete a minimum of sixty units total and residency requirements on both campuses: twenty-four semester units at SDSU and thirty-six quarter units at UC San Diego.

Examinations and Advancement to Candidacy

In order to advance to candidacy, students must a) complete their course work, b) pass a take-home qualifying examination, c) develop a proposal of their dissertation research (NIH-style proposal format), and d) pass an oral defense of their dissertation proposal with their committee. The first part of the qualifying examination is administered following year one of the program. This in-person one-day exam will evaluate the student’s ability to apply key concepts to standardize prompts related to: 1) research methods, 2) statistics, and 3) theory. The material for this examination will be taken from course materials related to each of these respective courses at SDSU. The second part of the exam is administered at the end of year two and will require students to prepare an NIH-style grant proposal. Students will respond to an NIH-style RFA for substance use-related research through a two-week take-home qualifying exam. Grant proposals will be evaluated by at least one member from the IRSU JDP leadership and two members from the student’s dissertation committee; in order to pass each qualifying exam, students must achieve at least 80 percent within two attempts.

Faculty Advisers

IRSU JDP codirectors (UC San Diego and SDSU) will advise students on the technical aspects of the program and will pair each incoming student with a primary academic adviser based on shared research interests and availability. In the first two years of the program, primary academic advisers will support students in gaining the requisite proficiency to independently apply what they are learning in their courses to real-world research via integration into the primary adviser’s research or related applied opportunities. By the end of winter quarter in year two, all students must have their dissertation committees approved by JDP codirectors and UC San Diego. Dissertation committees will consist of five faculty members from SDSU and UC San Diego, including a primary mentor and a co-mentor based on the student’s dissertation topic and method(s) of interest. It is expected that the committee chair will serve as the student’s primary adviser in the last two years of the program to assist the student in selecting electives related to the student’s dissertation focus and to oversee the proposal and dissertation process.

Dissertation Committee

Consistent with other SDSU/UC San Diego JDPs, dissertation/doctoral advisory committees will be composed of a minimum of five members including the chair. Each committee should include at least two internal members from each institution—two faculty members from UC San Diego and two faculty members from SDSU. One of these four members must be the committee chairperson. The fifth member must be a tenured faculty member from either institution and must be outside the department of the committee chair.

Dissertation

Students will select from two dissertation formats: (1) primary research (i.e., independent research with at least one source of primary data collection led by the student that is expected to produce multiple papers of publishable quality that answer one to three research aims), or (2) secondary research (i.e., three sequential first-authored research papers of publishable quality drawn from existing data sources that answer an overarching research question). Dissertations on primary and secondary research must represent a coherent body of work. Dissertations from both formats will be presented in chapters which include: (a) an introduction to the dissertation, (b) a targeted literature review and conceptual model guiding the dissertation work, (c) independent chapters, written as independent publishable manuscripts, for each study aim (independent research) or for each of the three sequential papers (secondary research), and (d) a conclusion summarizing the dissertation’s contributions to the literature in line with the guiding conceptual framework and outlining future research directions.

Award of the Degree

The doctor of philosophy degree will be awarded jointly by the Regents of the University of California and the Trustees of the California State University in the names of both cooperating institutions.

Financial Support

Each year, four students will be admitted with funding for up to four years contingent on good academic standing and satisfactory progress in the program. Funding will cover tuition at SDSU, UC San Diego, and payment for twenty hours per week of mentored research. Primary funding will be provided by SDSU Academic Affairs and the College of Health and Human Services.