Dr. Self received his Bachelors in Zoology from Iowa State University in 1985, and worked as a Biochemist at Endocrine Sciences in Los Angeles, CA until 1987. Dr. Self entered graduate school in 1987 in the Department of Pharmacology at UC Irvine, and received a Ph.D. there in 1992. Dr. Self was a postdoctoral fellow from 1992-1995 in the Division of Molecular Psychiatry at Yale University. Dr. Self was appointed to an Assistant Professorship in the Psychiatry Department at Yale University in 1996. In late 2000, Dr. Self joined the UT Southwestern faculty as an Associate Professor of Psychiatry in the Seay Center for Basic and Applied Research in Psychiatric Illness.
Dr. Self has pioneered work on the role of neuroadaptations in addictive behavior, and has identified important neurobiological mechanisms underlying drug craving and relapse to drug seeking. In 1996, he was awarded a Presidential Early Career Award by the White House, and in 2007, the prestigious Daniel H. Efron Award by the American College of Neuropsychopharmacology, for contributions relating to this work. His laboratory continues to implement modern molecular technology in the study of addictive behavior.
