Carol J. Boyd is the Deborah J Oakley Emerita Professor of Nursing, Emerita Professor of Women’s Studies and an Emerita Research Professor in the Department of Psychiatry, at the University of Michigan—Ann Arbor. Dr. Boyd is an internationally recognized substance abuse scholar and the founding director of the Center for the Study of Drugs, Alcohol, Smoking and Health at the University of Michigan. She was the Director of the University of Michigan Substance Abuse Research Center from 1995-2004 and the University of Michigan Institute for Research on Women & Gender from 2005-2011.
Dr. Boyd has a long-standing interest in substance use, dating back to the late 1970’s. She has had extramural funding to conduct mixed-method studies with women crack smokers (1989-1995, NIH funded), prisoners (1999-2004, MDOC and Robert Wood Johnson funded), adolescents and college students (2003-present, NIH funded), and secondary analytic studies of substance use among high-risk populations. Moreover, Dr. Boyd has used innovative technologies to survey adolescents and young adults on substance use and related behaviors.
In 1999, Dr. Boyd was the first researcher (as a Principal Investigator) to develop two web-based surveys, Student Life Survey and Secondary Student Life Survey, to examine substance use and related behaviors among adolescents and emerging adults. The Student Life Surveys were the foundation for five NIH-funded studies and the Secondary Student Life Survey is now being used on smartphones.