Susan L. Ames, Ph.D.
Associate ProfessorSusan L. Ames received her Ph.D. in preventive medicine with a focus on health behavior research from the University of Southern California in 2001. She completed her doctoral training with support from an NCI Cancer Control and Epidemiology Research Training Grant. After completing her doctorate, she was an assistant research psychologist at the Center for Research on Substance Abuse, Department of Psychology, UCLA, and co-investigator on an Implicit Cognition and HIV risk project. Dr. Ames subsequently became faculty at USC where she was an assistant professor with the Transdisciplinary Drug Abuse Prevention Research Center (TPRC), Department of Preventive Medicine, USC. She has been co-investigator on several substance abuse prevention projects funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Currently, she is PI on a NIDA-funded project that involves imaging (fMRI) the neural substrates of implicit marijuana associations during performance on indirect tests of associations. She is co-investigator (Stacy, PI) on another NIDA-funded project investigating implicit and control processes in HIV-risk behavior among drug offenders. Her work focuses on the transdisciplinary area of associative memory. This area integrates research from neuroscience, memory, social cognition, learning, and decision theory to explain how drug use (and other risk behavior) habits begin and are perpetuated.
She has taught courses in Research Methods, Issues in the Cessation and Prevention of Substance Abuse, and Theoretical Foundations in Health Promotion and Education. She worked in substance abuse treatment for nearly a decade, and co-authored two books on concepts in the etiology, prevention and cessation of substance abuse.
Research Interests- Dual process models of addictive behaviors (implicit and neurocognitive control processes).
- Neurobiological systems and brain structures associated with implicit and control processes and addictive behaviors.
- Mediation of implicit associative processes and moderating effects of neurocognitive processes in addictive behaviors.
- Etiology of habits (eg. substance addictions and HIV-risk behavior) among at-risk populations.
- New prevention and risk reduction strategies for addictive behaviors.
Education
- University of Southern California, PhD, 2001
- California State University Los Angeles, M.A., 1994
Selected Publications
Ames, S.L. & Stacy, A.W. (1998). Implicit cognition in the prediction of substance use among drug offenders. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 12(4), 272-281.
Stacy, A. W., Newcomb, M. D. & Ames, S. L. (2000). An implicit cognition, memory activation approach to HIV risk behaviors. Journal of Behavioral Medicine 23, 475-499.
Ames, S.L., Zogg, J.B. & Stacy, A.W. (2002). Implicit cognition, sensation seeking, marijuana use, and driving behavior among drug offenders. Personality and Individual Differences, 33(7), 1055-1072.
Stacy, A.W., Ames, S.L. & Knowlton, B. (2004). Neurologically plausible distinctions in cognition relevant to drug abuse etiology and prevention. Substance Use and Misuse 39, 1571-1623.
Ames, S.L., Sussman, S., Dent, C. & Stacy, A.W. (2005). Implicit cognition and dissociative experiences as predictors of adolescent substance use. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 31(1), 129-162.
Stacy, A.W., Ames, S.L., Ullman, J.B., Zogg, J.B. & Leigh, B.C. (2006). Spontaneous Cognition and HIV Risk Behavior. Psychology of Addictive Behavior, 20(2), 196-206.
Ames, S.L., Franken, I.H.A. & Coronges, K. (2006). Implicit Cognition and Drugs of Abuse. In R.W. Wiers & A.W. Stacy, Eds. Handbook on Implicit Cognition and Addiction (pp. 363-378). Thousand Oaks, CA, Sage.
Ames, S.L. & McBride, C. (2006). Translating genetics, cognitive science and other basic science research findings into applications for prevention of substance use. Evaluation and the Health Professions, 29 (3), 277-301.
Ames, S.L., Grenard, J., Thush, C., Sussman, S., Wiers, R.W., & Stacy, A.W. (2007). Comparison of indirect assessments of association as predictors of marijuana use among at-risk adolescents. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology. 15(2):204-18.
Grenard, J.L., Ames, S.L., Wiers, R., Thush, C., Sussman, S. & Stacy, A.W. (2008). Working memory moderates the association between drug-related associations in memory and the frequency of substance use Psychology of Addictive Behavior, 22(3), 426-432.
Books
Sussman, S. & Ames, S.L (2001). The social psychology of drug abuse. Buckingham, UK: Open University Press.
Sussman, S. & Ames, S.L. (2008). Drug abuse: concepts, prevention and cessation. Cambridge University Press.
