Program Officer
Changhai Cui, Ph.D.
Focus Area
Biographical Summary
Dr. Changhai Cui is a Program Director in the Division of Neuroscience and Behavior at the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). She oversees a portfolio that focuses on the neurobiology of alcohol use disorder at the molecular, cellular, and circuitry levels, including areas such as neuromodulation, neuroimmune interaction, and neurotechnology. She also serves as the NIAAA contact for the K99/R00 program and works with other Program Directors to facilitate the career development of the next generation alcohol investigators.
Dr. Cui represents the NIAAA in multiple trans-NIH initiatives and has leveraged the experiences gained to advance alcohol research. She has actively engaged in the BRAIN Initiative and the Blueprint for Neuroscience Research and serves as the lead and co-lead for Blueprint initiatives on Neuroimmune Interactions and Interoception. Dr. Cui is committed to bridging science and technological advances to public health concerns and has played a key role in RADx-rad’s automatic tracing initiative and heavy lifting the collaborative effort to accelerate the development of the non-invasive, wearable alcohol biosensor.
Dr. Cui has more than 25 years research and administration experience in the broad areas of neuroscience. Prior to joining the NIAAA, Dr. Cui was a faculty member at Blanchett Rockefeller Neuroscience Institute, where she led research focusing on neurotransmitter systems in aging-related diseases. Dr. Cui earned her Ph.D. in Biochemistry from the University of Wisconsin-Madison and conducted postdoctoral research in Molecular Neuroscience and Electrophysiology at the Salk Institute and the National Institutes of Health.