Christian Hendershot, PhD

Dr. Hendershot is a Professor of Population and Public Health Sciences and Director of Clinical Research, USC Institute for Addiction Science. He is also a member of the USC Norris Comprehensive Cancer Center. He completed his Ph.D. in clinical psychology at the University of Washington, followed by postdoctoral training at the University of New Mexico. Prior to joining USC Dr. Hendershot held faculty positions at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill and the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health/University of Toronto, where he held a Canada Research Chair in Alcohol Use Disorders. Dr. Hendershot’s research utilizes clinical, cognitive, neuroscience and psychopharmacology methods to study risk factors and candidate treatments for substance use disorder. His current projects include clinical trials to investigate the efficacy of glucagon-like peptide-1 (GLP-1) receptor agonists as novel treatments for alcohol use disorder and tobacco use disorder.

• Government of Canada: Canada Research Chair, 2016
   – 2021
• Canadian Institutes of Health Research: The Peter Lougheed New Investigator Award, 2013

• University of Washington, Seattle, WA — Ph.D. — 2009 — Clinical Psychology
• University of New Mexico, Albuquerque, NM — Postdoctoral Fellowship — 2010

• The year of Ozempic (Dec 2023)
• Could popular weight loss drugs become the new treatment for addiction? Evidence is starting to mount (March 2026)
• GLP-1s are a weight loss miracle. Could they also curb the opioid crisis? (March 2026)
• Did scientists accidentally invent an anti-addiction drug? (May 2023)
• Ozempic seems to curb cravings for alcohol. Here's what scientists think is going on (Aug 2023)
• Some People on Ozempic Lose the Desire to Drink. Scientists Are Asking Why (Feb 2023)
• As the Pandemic Deepened, Americans Kept Drinking More (Nov 2024)

• Leventhal, Adam
• Pedersen, Eric
• Unger, Jennifer
• Sussman, Steven
• Lerman, Caryn
• Barrington-Trimis, Jessica