Robert O. Messing MD

Robert Messing, M.D., is the director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research and a professor in the Department of Neurology. Messing received his Bachelor of Arts with honors in history and his medical degree, both from Stanford University. He trained in internal medicine at the University of Virginia, and then in neurology at the University of California, San Francisco. He joined the UCSF neurology faculty and was a member of the UCSF neuroscience graduate program. He was a principal investigator at the Ernest Gallo Clinic and Research Center, where he became vice president for internal affairs. He was the founding director of the NIAAA-funded Alcohol Center for Translational Genetics at UCSF.

Robert Messing was recruited to The University of Texas at Austin and served until 2015 as the vice provost for biomedical sciences to help launch the Dell Medical School. He served as associate dean for research development for Dell Med. He became director of the Waggoner Center for Alcohol and Addiction Research at UT Austin. He is currently a professor in the Department of Neurology at Dell Medical School and Department of Neuroscience in the College of Natural Sciences, and he serves as senior adviser to the dean of Dell Medical School for research strategy.