Rate My Professor Ryan Ward

Dr. Ryan Ward is a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at the University of Otago, joining the institution in 2014. He obtained his BS, MS, and PhD from Utah State University, with his doctorate awarded in 2008. Prior to his appointment at Otago, he completed postdoctoral research fellowships in the Departments of Psychiatry and Neuroscience at Columbia University in New York City. Ward's research interests center on two primary domains: behavioural neuroscience and the motivations, experiences, and consequences of human drug taking. In behavioural neuroscience, he utilizes advanced behavioural analysis techniques combined with neural circuit manipulation and recording to investigate the mechanisms underlying motivation, cognition, and their interactions. His work particularly examines how environmental cues signaling rewards activate cognitive and motivational processes and how these may be impaired in psychiatric conditions such as schizophrenia. He is engaged in developing animal models that capture subjective internal states like psychosis to facilitate translational research aimed at improving treatments for psychiatric disorders.

In his studies on human drug use, Ward's group conducts nationwide surveys and focus groups across Aotearoa New Zealand to understand users' motivations for consuming substances, their experiences, associated harms or benefits, and knowledge of harm-reduction strategies. Current and past projects focus on MDMA, psychedelics, benzodiazepines, cannabis, and nitrous oxide. He teaches PSYC 210: Principles of Psychological Research and PSYC 330: Drugs, Behaviour, Addiction, and Policy, and has supervised more than 30 postgraduate students. Notable publications include Tashakori-Sabzevar et al. (2024) 'Basal forebrain and prelimbic cortex connectivity is related to behavioral response in an attention task' in iScience; Whelan, Noller, and Ward (2024) 'Harm reduction behaviours and harm experiences of people who use 3,4-methylenedioxymethamphetamine (MDMA) in Aotearoa New Zealand' in Harm Reduction Journal; Deane et al. (2023) 'Cognitive and arginine metabolic correlates of temporal dysfunction in the MIA rat model of schizophrenia risk' in Behavioral Neuroscience; and Deane and Ward (2022) 'The instrumental role of operant paradigms in translational psychiatric research: Insights from a maternal immune activation model of schizophrenia risk' in Journal of the Experimental Analysis of Behavior. His scholarship has accumulated over 2,800 citations.