Dr Wilson Compton (USA) M.D., M.P.E. is Deputy Director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health where he has worked in leadership positions since 2002. Before joining NIDA, Dr Compton was tenured faculty in the Department of Psychiatry and Director of the Master in Psychiatric Epidemiology Program at Washington University in Saint Louis as well as Medical Director of Addiction Services at the Barnes-Jewish Hospital. Dr Compton received his undergraduate education from Amherst College. He attended medical school and completed residency training in psychiatry at Washington University in Saint Louis.
Over his career, Dr Compton has achieved multiple scientific accomplishments. He has authored over 250 publications and has been an invited speaker at multiple high-impact venues. He was a member of DSM-5’s Revision Task Force and Vice Chair for the DSM-5-Text Revision. He has led, for NIDA, development of the Population Assessment of Tobacco and Health Study (PATH), a longitudinal population study, jointly sponsored by NIDA and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), with 45,971 baseline participants who provide survey responses and biological assessments to inform U.S. tobacco regulations.
Dr Compton is a member of numerous professional organizations, including Alpha Omega Alpha medical education honor society. He is the recipient of multiple awards, including the 2008 Senior Scholar Health Services Research Award from the American Psychiatric Association and the 2010 Paul Hoch Award from the American Psychopathological Association. The FDA selected him to receive collaboration and cross-cutting awards in 2012, 2013 and 2017. In 2018, Dr. Compton received the James W. West award from the National Association of Addiction Treatment Providers. He also received the Health and Human Services Secretary’s Awards for Meritorious Service in 2013 and Distinguished Service in 2015, 2018 and 2019. In 2022 he was selected to become a Distinguished Life Fellow of the American Psychiatric Association.
