The Rutgers Addiction Research Center within the Brain Health Institute is excited to welcome Anne Fernandez to our leadership team. Beginning June 29, 2026, Dr. Fernandez will serve as Associate Director of Health Services and Policy in the RARC and Associate Professor with Tenure in the Department of Psychiatry at Rutgers Robert Wood Johnson Medical School. 

Dr. Fernandez is a licensed clinical psychologist and addiction researcher with specialty training in behavioral medicine. Her research focuses on improving the quality, accessibility, and reach of substance use disorder screening, intervention, and treatment across healthcare settings. A major focus of her work is expanding addiction care beyond traditional specialty treatment programs and into medical, hepatology, and surgical clinics, where patients may be facing new diagnoses, health risks, or other critical moments that can increase motivation to change. Her work also uses innovative approaches, such as natural language processing of large healthcare datasets to better identify patients in need of intervention and addiction care. 

As an Associate Director within the RARC, Dr. Fernandez will help advance interdisciplinary research, training, and outreach initiatives, with a focus on strengthening connections among researchers, healthcare systems, and policy stakeholders. We are thrilled to welcome Dr. Fernandez to Rutgers and look forward to the expertise and collaborative leadership she will bring to the RARC community.