Yale’s Samuel Ball to lead National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse

Samuel A. Ball, professor of psychiatry at Yale University School of Medicine, has been named president and chief executive of The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA).

Ball will oversee an expanded effort by the center to study all addictions and addictive behaviors including obesity and eating disorders, compulsive gambling, and sexual addictions, as well as nicotine, alcohol, and illegal and prescription drugs.

“Dr. Ball brings a breadth of experience and vision to a job of critical national importance — reducing the suffering and cost of addiction,” said Dr. John Krystal, chair of department of psychiatry. “CASA could not have picked a better leader.”

A nationally known expert on addiction, Ball serves as assistant chair and director of faculty development programs for Yale’s Department of Psychiatry. He is also the research and scientific director of its Psychotherapy Development Research Center, of the Women’s Health and Addictive Behavior Faculty Scholars Program, and of the APT Foundation, one of the largest non-profit providers of substance abuse treatment in Connecticut.

CASA was established in 1992 at Columbia University by former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare Joseph Califano Jr. to help address the huge toll of addiction on society.

Ball will keep his faculty affiliation with Yale.