Jason B. Colditz, PhD, MEd

Dr. Colditz’s research examines how digital environments shape health and personal growth.

His work sits at the intersection of addiction recovery, digital health, and community development. Using computational social science methods - including social media surveillance, natural language processing, and machine learning - he studies psychosocial predictors of addiction recovery and how different forms of social support (e.g., family, peer groups, in-person and online communities) shape recovery trajectories. He also develops digital behavioral interventions that enhance social connection and promote healthy identity development in recovery and related behavioral health contexts.

Dr. Colditz's work is shaped by both scholarly expertise and lived experience with addiction and recovery. His journey fuels his commitment to advancing research that not only observes but improves recovery pathways for others.

A Pittsburgh native, Dr. Colditz has been part of the University of Pittsburgh community since 2005. He worked for over a decade as a research coordinator in Psychiatry and Medicine while completing his graduate studies. He served as lead coordinator and staff researcher at the former Center for Research on Media, Technology, and Health, later supporting the founding of the Center for Behavioral Health, Media, and Technology. He also coordinated the Bridging Connections in Addiction Research (BCAR) initiative, which fostered interdisciplinary collaborations from bench science to community health.

He is currently an Assistant Professor of Medicine and Psychiatry, where he conducts research, mentors emerging scholars, and teaches graduate courses in Applied Research Methods and Research Ethics. He has instructed accelerated courses on clinical research methods at the Institute for Clinical Research Education and guest lectured on computational social science methods at Pitt's School of Public Health and Department of Psychiatry and at Carnegie Mellon University. He has supervised and mentored dozens of research trainees across undergraduate, graduate, and clinical education programs. He currently teaches graduate courses in Applied Research Methods and Research Ethics.