Description

Two Open Rank Positions in Digital Behavioral Health 

The School of Social Work seeks tenure-track faculty at the assistant, associate, or full professor ranks for joint appointments with a newly established School of Medicine in Digital Behavioral Health. We welcome applications from strong candidates in two areas: (1) Digital Mental Health and (2) Digital Behavioral Health for Substance Use Disorder (SUD).

Digital Mental Health
We seek a scholar to lead an externally funded program of human-subjects research that advances digital mental health across the lifespan. The successful candidate will design, test, and scale evidence-based digital prevention and intervention tools and decision support—such as digital therapeutics, EHR-enabled measurement-based care, sensors and other digital biomarkers—augmented by AI methods including natural language processing, predictive modeling, risk stratification, and safe, transparent decision support. Projects may include conversational agents for psychoeducation or triage, AI-assisted clinical documentation and workflow optimization, and digital phenotyping for early detection, all developed and evaluated with strong ethical, equity, and governance safeguards. Emphasis is on real-world implementation that improves access, quality, and equity. The joint appointment enables close collaboration with clinical data science in Medicine while sustaining a Social Work portfolio centered on community implementation, mental health equity, practice integration, and ethics.

Digital Behavioral Health for SUD
We seek a scholar focused on SUD and co-occurring conditions to lead an externally funded, AI-driven program that designs, validates, and implements digital prevention, treatment, and recovery supports. Core activities include developing mobile and web interventions powered by predictive modeling for risk stratification and relapse forecasting, recommender systems for just-in-time adaptive interventions, and EHR-linked decision support that enables measurement-based care and care-pathway optimization. The faculty member will integrate multimodal clinical and patient-reported data through learning-health-system pipelines, conduct hybrid effectiveness–implementation trials and real-world evaluations, and deploy tools across primary care, emergency, oncology, and community settings. They will also co-design recovery platforms that connect peer services and harm-reduction resources and lead dissemination strategies that promote equitable adoption and sustained engagement, with explicit attention to safety, transparency, and governance of AI in behavioral health.

Faculty will pursue extramural funding to develop, evaluate, and scale digital behavioral health tools; teach undergraduate and graduate courses in digital mental health, SUD science, co-occurring conditions, implementation methods, and research ethics and equity in digital care; and develop new curricula and short courses that translate emerging evidence into practice-ready skills. They will mentor students and trainees across disciplines—including MSW, MPH, PhD, MD, nursing, informatics, and data science—with attention to  mentoring and career development; build and sustain partnerships with hospitals, FQHCs, health departments, community-based organizations, and peer-led recovery programs to co-design, pilot, and implement digital interventions; and lead dissemination and implementation activities aligned with agency priorities, producing practical toolkits, train-the-trainer materials, and evaluation dashboards.

You will join an exceptionally talented and passionate group of scholars and staff, and there are opportunities to work in partnership with our Center for Human Trafficking Research & Outreach, Center for Social Justice, Human and Civil Rights, and the Institute for Nonprofit Organizations. Faculty also collaborate with the College of Pharmacy, College of Public Health, the new College of Nursing, College of Engineering, College of Family and Consumer Sciences, Mary Frances Early College of Education, School of Law, the Owens Institute for Behavioral Research, the Institute for Artificial Intelligence, and other units.

The School and Institution
Chartered in 1785, the University of Georgia in Athens is a Carnegie RU/VH university, and the state’s flagship institution of higher education. The School of Social Work provides professional education to over 500 students through its CSWE–accredited B.S.W. and M.S.W. programs, Ph.D. program, and the Master of Nonprofit Management and Leadership. The School of Social Work also offers joint M.S.W. degree programs with the School of Law and the College of Public Health. The School of Social Work is nationally and internationally known for excellence in research, teaching, public service, international programs, and a commitment to social and economic justice. 

The Individuals
The candidate selected for this faculty position will be an outstanding scholar and teacher. Applicants must demonstrate exceptional research capacity and potential for external funding. Faculty are expected to engage in teaching, research, practicum education liaison duties and/or academic advising, and service. They may teach across the educational continuum at our Athens, Gwinnett, and Online campuses.  We expect successful candidates to share our commitment to enriching our institutional missions of teaching, research and service.   

Candidates for the Assistant Professor rank must have a Ph.D. in social work or cognate discipline (e.g. psychology, sociology, public health, neuroscience, economics). An M.S.W. degree with two years post master’s practice experience strongly preferred but not required. Candidates for the Associate Professor rank must also be engaged in teaching, research, and service consistent with an appointment at the rank of associate professor. Candidates for the Professor rank must also be engaged in teaching, research, and service consistent with a tenured faculty appointment at the rank of a tenured professor. 

Nominations and Applications
Application materials must be submitted through UGAJobs system https://www.ugajobsearch.com/postings/460623.  Applicants should upload an application letter that includes a discussion of teaching philosophy and research agenda, and a curriculum vitae. Three letters of reference addressed to the University of Georgia, School of Social Work, Faculty Search Committee will be required at the time of interview. Review of applications will begin immediately and will be accepted until the position is filled. Questions should be routed to Dr. Llewellyn Cornelius at lcornel@uga.edu Please note “Faculty Search” in the subject line.