Randy P. Auerbach, Ph.D., ABPP is Associate Professor in the Department of Psychiatry at Columbia University and Division of Clinical Developmental Neuroscience, Sackler Institute. Additionally, he serves as Co-Director of the Center for the Prevention and Treatment of Depression at Columbia University and Co-Director for the WHO, World Mental Health International College Student Initiative. Dr. Auerbach received his B.A. from Cornell University (2000) and Ph.D. in Clinical Psychology from McGill University (2010). His research uses a multidisciplinary and multimodal approach (i.e., laboratory-based experiments, passive sensor data collection, electrophysiology, neuroimaging) to identify mechanisms that contribute to the onset of depression and suicidal behaviors in adolescents. Dr. Auerbach is Co-Investigator of the Conte Center for Suicide Prevention Project 5, “Stress, Inflammation, Aggression and Emotion Regulation in Suicidal Behavior”.

Research Focus

Dr. Auerbach’s research is committed to improving our understanding of depression and suicide in adolescents. His research aims to determine why depressive symptoms unfold, how self-injurious and suicidal behaviors develop, and what changes in the brain during treatment. As a whole, the research strives to better understand the putative mechanisms that may improve early identification of and treatment for adolescent depression and suicidal behaviors.

Select Publications

1. Allen, N. B., Nelson, B. W., Brent, D., & Auerbach, R. P. (in press). Short-term prediction of suicidal thoughts and behaviors in adolescents: Can recent developments in technology and computational science provide a breakthrough? Journal of Affective Disorders.

2. Stewart, J. G., Shields, G. S., Esposito, E. C., Cosby, E. A., Allen, N. B., Slavich, G., & Auerbach, R. P. (in press). Life stress and suicide in adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology.

3. Lincoln, S. H., Pisoni, A., Bondy, E., Kumar, P., Singleton, P., Hajcak, G., Pizzagalli, D. A., & Auerbach, R. P. (2019). Altered reward processing following an acute stressor in adolescents. Plos One, 14(1), e0209361.

4. Auerbach, R. P., Mortier, P., Bruffaerts, R., Alonso, J., Benjet, C., Cuijpers, P., Demyttenaere, K., Ebert, D. D., Green, J. G., Hasking, P., Lee, S., Lochner, C., McLafferty, M., Nock, M. K., Petukhova, M. V., Pinder-Amaker, S., Rosellini, A. J., Sampson, N. A., Vilagut, G., Zaslavsky, A. M., Kessler, R. C., & WHO WMH-ICS Collaborators. (2018). Mental disorder comorbidity and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in the World Health Organization World Mental Health Surveys International College Student initiative. International Journal of Methods in Psychiatric Research, e1752.

5. Auerbach, R. P., Mortier, P., Bruffaerts, R., Alonso, J., Benjet, C., Cuijpers, P., Demyttenaere, K., Ebert, D. D., Green, J. G., Hasking, P., Murray, E., Nock, M. K., Pinder-Amaker, S., Sampson, N. A., Stein, D. A., Vilagut, G., Zaslavsky, A. M., Kessler, R. C., & WHO WMH-ICS Collaborators. (2018). The WHO World Mental Health Surveys International College Student project: Prevalence and distribution of mental disorders. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 127, 623-638.

6. Mortier, P., Auerbach, R. P., Alonso, J., Bantjes, J., Cuijpers, P., Ebert, D. D., Green, J. G., Hasking, P., Nock, M. K., O’Neill, S., Pinder-Amaker, S., Sampson, N., Vilagut, G., Zaslavsky, A. M., Bruffaerts, R., Kessler, R. C., & WHO WMH-ICS Collaborators. (2018). Suicidal thoughts and behaviors among first-year college students: Results from the WMH-ICS Project. Journal of the American Academy of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry, 57, 263-273.

7. Stewart, J. G., Valeri, L., Esposito, E. C., & Auerbach, R. P. (2018). Peer victimization and suicidal thoughts and behaviors in depressed adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 46, 581-596.

8. Auerbach, R. P., Pisoni, A., Bondy, E., Kumar, P., Stewart, J. G., Yendiki, A., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2017). Neuroanatomical prediction of anhedonia in adolescents. Neuropsychopharmacology, 42, 2087-2095.

9. Auerbach, R. P., Stewart, J. G., & Johnson, S. L. (2017). Impulsivity and suicidality in adolescent inpatients. Journal of Abnormal Child Psychology, 45, 91-103.

10. Stewart, J. G., Esposito, E. C., Glenn, C. R., Gilman, S. E., Pridgen, B., Gold, J., & Auerbach, R. P. (2017). Adolescent self-injurers: Comparing non-ideators, suicide ideators, and suicide attempters. Journal of Psychiatric Research, 84, 105-112.

11. Stewart, J. G., Glenn, C. R., Esposito, E. C., Cha, C. B., Nock, M. K., & Auerbach, R. P. (2017). Cognitive control deficits differentiate adolescent suicide ideators from attempters. The Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 78, e614-e621.

12. Webb, C. A., Auerbach, R. P., Bondy, E., Stanton, C. H., Foti, D. J., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2017). Abnormal neural responses to feedback in depressed adolescents. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 126, 19-31.

13. Auerbach, R. P., Alonso, J., Axinn, W. G., Cuijpers, P., Ebert, D., Green, J. G., Hwang, I., Kessler, R. C., Liu, H., Mortier, P., Nock, M. K., Pinder-Amaker, S., Sampson, N., Aguilar-Gaxiola, S., Al-Hamzawi, A., Andreade, L. H., Benjet, C., Caldas-de-Almeida, J. M., Demyttenaere, K., Florescu, S., de Girolamo, G., Gureje, O., Haro, J. M., Karam, E., Kiejna, A., Kovess-Masfety, V., Lee, S., McGrath, J., O’Neill, S., Pennell, B.E., Scot, K., ten Have, M., Torres, Y., Zarkov, Z., & Bruffaerts, R. (2016). Mental disorders among college students in the WHO World Mental Health Surveys. Psychological Medicine, 46, 2955-2970.

14. Auerbach, R. P., Stanton, C. H., Proudfit, G. H., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2015). Self-referential processing in depressed adolescents: A high-density event-related potential study. Journal of Abnormal Psychology, 124(2), 233-245.

15. Auerbach, R. P., Stewart, J. G., Stanton, C. H., Mueller, E., & Pizzagalli, D. A. (2015). Emotion processing and resting EEG activity in depressed adolescents. Depression and Anxiety, 32, 693-701.