Core Group Member

Brian R. Flay, D.Phil.
Professor of Public Health 
Oregon State University
Department of Public Health
256 Waldo Hall
Corvallis, OR 97331-6406
Phone: 541-737-3837
Fax: 541-737-4001
Email:  brian.flay@oregonstate.edu

Brian R. Flay is Professor of Public Health at Oregon State University. Prior to moving to OSU, he was Distinguished Professor of Community Health Sciences (Public Health) and Psychology at the University of Illinois at Chicago (UIC). He received his D.Phil. in Social Psychology from Waikato University (New Zealand) in 1976. After receiving Postdoctoral training in evaluation research and social psychology at Northwestern University under a Fulbright/Hays Fellowship, he started research on health promotion and disease prevention at the University of Waterloo (Canada). He was then at the University of Southern California for 8 years. He was at UIC from 1987 to 2005 where he started the Prevention Research Center, now the Institute for Health Research and Policy (IHRP), a cluster of university-wide centers focusing on health behavior, health promotion and disease prevention, health in the elderly, health services and health policy. Dr. Flay has conducted a series of experimental studies of programs for the prevention of cigarette smoking, substance use, AIDS and violence in Canada, California, and Chicago. He is currently conducting school-based randomized trials (in Chicago and Hawaii) of the Positive Action program, a K-12 character education program that appears to change school climates, improve class management skills and time on task by teachers, and increase learning and improve behavior of students. Dr. Flay is a Fellow of the Society for Behavioral Medicine, the Society for Community Research and Action, and the American Academy of Health Behavior. He received recognition for outstanding research from the Research Council of the American School Health Association (1993), the American Academy of Health Behavior (Research Laureate Award, 2001), and Current Contents ISI (recognized as a Highly Cited Researcher – in the top 1/2% - 2003).