Professor Isidore S. Obot is the founding Director, Centre for Research and Information on Substance Abuse (CRISA), Uyo, Nigeria. He has held positions as Head, Department of Psychology, University of Uyo, Nigeria; Professor of Public Health and Chair, Department of Behavioral Sciences, Morgan State School of Public Health in Baltimore, MD, USA; Scientist in the Department of Mental Health and Substance Abuse, World Health Organization, Geneva; and research fellow in drug dependence epidemiology and policy at the Johns Hopkins University Bloomberg School of Public Health.
Obot is the author of many papers on different aspects of drug and alcohol research and Editor-in-Chief of the African Journal of Drug and Alcohol Studies. He consults for many organizations on alcohol and drug-related issues, e.g., the African Union and ECOWAS, and has served as a member of several committees and commissions on drugs and health, including the Lancet-JHU Commission on Drug Policy and Health, the UNODC committee for the development of International Standards for the Treatment of Drug Use Disorders, and the World Health Organization Technical Advisory Committee on Alcohol and Drugs.
Professor Obot received his PhD degree in psychology from Howard University, Washington DC in 1982 and a master of public health (MPH) degree from the Harvard School of Public Health in Boston in 1984. His academic career and public service activities began at the University of Jos, Nigeria, where he was appointed as a lecturer in 1985. Professor Obot is well known globally in alcohol and drug policy circles and continues to play a key role in substance abuse research and policy in Africa.