Ziva Cooper PhD

Dr. Ziva Cooper is an Assistant Professor of Clinical Neurobiology in the Department of Psychiatry at the College of Physicians and Surgeons of Columbia University. She received her Ph.D from the University of Michigan in Biopsychology, where she studied the abuse liability of drugs in laboratory animals specifically focusing on how different states of opioid dependence alter operant behavior maintained by various reinforcers. In 2009, she completed a postdoctoral fellowship under the mentorship of Drs. Margaret Haney and Sandra Comer in the Division on Substance Abuse at Columbia University studying human behavioral pharmacology of cannabinoids and opioids. Her general research interest involves understanding the neurobiological, environmental, and behavioral variables that influence the reinforcing effects of drugs. To that end, she is currently concentrating on human laboratory models of polysubstance abuse in order to determine how multiple receptor systems contribute to the abuse liability of psychoactive drugs, including cannabinoids, opioids, and cocaine.