Biographical Sketch for Richard Spoth, Ph.D.

Richard Spoth, Ph.D., is the F. Wendell Miller Senior Prevention Scientist and the Director of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute at Iowa State University.  As the Institute director, Dr. Spoth provides oversight for an interrelated series of studies addressing motivational factors influencing prevention program participation, program efficacy, culturally competent programming, and diffusion of empirically-supported programs. 

The Institute’s research is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, the National Institute of Mental Health, the National Institute for Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, and the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention.  Dr. Spoth has directed Project Family—one of ten projects selected and described in the National Institute on Drug Abuse's (1997) Preventing Drug Abuse Among Children and Adolescents: A Research-based Guide.  Based upon Project Family research, one of the programs evaluated—the Iowa Strengthening Families Program—has received recognition from the Center for Substance Abuse Prevention, the Office of Juvenile Justice and Delinquency Prevention, and the U.S. Department of Education (1997-2000). 

In addition to his current directorship of the Partnerships in Prevention Science Institute, Dr. Spoth has joined with colleagues to spearhead the development of a number of other prevention- and research-related organizations, including the Institute for Social and Behavioral Research at Iowa State University.  He was a cofounder and is an Executive Committee Member for the Iowa Consortium for Substance Abuse Research and Evaluation, cited as a model collaborative in the Bridging the Gap between Practice and Research report by the Institute of Medicine in 1998.

In 1998, Dr. Spoth received a MERIT Award from the National Institute on Drug Abuse for a large-scale Project Family study evaluating prevention programs for families and youth.  He also was nominated for an Innovators Combating Substance Abuse Award, sponsored by the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation.  Dr. Spoth's lead-authored publications in intervention-oriented and family-focused journals such as the Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, Journal of Marriage and the Family, the Journal of Family Psychology, and Prevention Science reflect his research foci.  In addition, he has served on numerous federally sponsored expert, advisory and technical review panels addressing issues in prevention research and research-practice integration.