Professor of Pediatrics at Howard University School of Medicine, Washington, D.C.

Kathy Sanders-Phillips is currently a Professor of Pediatrics at Howard University School of medicine and Director of the Research Program in the Epidemiology and Prevention of Drug Abuse.  Prior to coming to Howard, Dr. Sanders-Phillips was a faculty member in the Department of Pediatrics at UCLA and at the King/Drew Medical Center in Los Angeles, and in the School of Public Health at the University of California at Berkeley.  

Dr. Sanders-Phillips holds a Ph.D. in developmental psychology from Johns Hopkins University.  She has served as a member of the National Council for the National Institute on Drug Abuse and as a member of the quality assurance committee to evaluate the NIH research portfolio.  She is a former member of the Advisory Board for the Tobacco-Related Disease Research Program at the University of California and Chair of the AIDS Taskforce for the University of California. 

Dr. Sanders-Phillips’ research has primarily focused on the impact of exposure to community violence on health behaviors, outcomes, and substance use in communities of color, particularly among children and adolescents. She developed the first research institute in violence research at the King/Drew Medical Center and has published empirical and theoretical articles on the influence of exposure to violence on psychological distress and health behaviors and decisions in communities of color.