College Welcomes Behavioral Sciences, Public Health Researcher Dipali Rinker to PHOP Faculty, PREMIER Center

Sept. 7 — The University of Houston College of Pharmacy recently welcomed Dipali V. Rinker, Ph.D., LPC, as a research assistant professor in the Department of Pharmaceutical Health Outcomes and Policy and The Prescription Drug Misuse Education and Research (PREMIER) Center.

Rinker earned a bachelor’s degree in psychology from Trinity University in San Antonio, Texas, and a master’s degree in clinical psychology from the University of Houston-Clear Lake. She completed her Ph.D. in Public Health with a focus on behavioral sciences/health promotion and epidemiology/biostatistics at the University of Texas Health Science Center School of Public Health.

Her research projects have focused on alcohol use among college students, problem gambling with college students, colon cancer screening in veterans, nicotine dependence, and eating disorders. Rinker has served as coordinator, co-investigator and principal investigator on a muiltiple grants funded by organizations such as the National Institutes of Health, U.S. Center for Disease Control and Prevention, and the National Center for Responsible Gaming. Her most recent appointments include serving as assistant professor at the American University of the Caribbean (AUC) School of Medicine in St. Maarten.

Rinker has authored or co-authored more than 20 articles in peer-reviewed journals, including Addictive Behaviors, Alcohol and Alcoholism, Journal of Gambling Studies, Journal of Studies on Alcohol and Drugs, and Journal of Substance Abuse Treatment. In addition, she has presented over 30 papers and abstracts at such meetings as the Research Society on Alcoholism, Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies, American Psychological Association Division, and the National Center for Responsible Gaming Conference on Gambling and Addiction, to name a few.

She has served as motivational interviewing consultant and trainer for Pan American Health Organization (PAHO) with a focus on training health care workers in Trinidad and Tobago.