Cassandra Boness

Assistant Professor

Research Interests:

  • Addiction etiologic and maintenance mechanisms
  • Measurement and assessment
  • Psychometrics
  • Mixed methods
  • Empirically supported treatments
  • Motivational interviewing

Profile:

Accepting students?  Dr. Boness is accepting students for Fall 2025.  Please email Dr. Boness if you are interested in pursuing graduate studies.

 

I am a licensed clinical psychologist who specializes in substance use and substance use disorders, especially alcohol. My research is guided by the goals of reducing harm and improving wellbeing for people who use substances and I am particularly interested in the individual and contextual factors that cause and maintain use. My current program of research, funded by a National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism career development award, aims to develop research-based assessments of these factors through community-engaged approaches with the overall goal of improving treatment outcomes for all people.

Selected Publications

  • Boness, C. L., Carlos Gonzalez, J., Sleep, C., Venner, K. L., & Witkiewitz, K. (2024). Evidence-Based Assessment of Substance Use Disorder. Assessment, 31(1), 168-190.
  • Boness, C. L., Votaw, V. R., Schwebel, F. J., Moniz-Lewis, D. I., McHugh, R. K., & Witkiewitz, K. (2023). An evaluation of cognitive behavioral therapy for substance use disorders: A systematic review and application of the society of clinical psychology criteria for empirically supported treatments. Clinical Psychology: Science and Practice.
  • Boness, C.L. & Witkiewitz, K. (2022). Precision medicine in alcohol use disorder: Mapping etiologic and maintenance mechanisms to mechanisms of behavior change to improve patient outcomes. Experimental and Clinical Psychopharmacology, 31(4), 769-779.
  • Boness, C.L., Watts, A.L., Moeller, K., & Sher, K.J. (2021). The Etiologic, Theory-Based, Ontogenetic Hierarchical Framework of Alcohol Use Disorder: A translational systematic review of reviews. Psychological Bulletin, 147(10), 1075-1123.
  • Boness, C.L., Lane, S.P., & Sher, K.J. (2019). Not all alcohol use disorder criteria are equally severe: Towards severity grading of individual criteria. Psychology of Addictive Behaviors, 33(1), 35-49.