Jon Soske, PhD, is a research associate in addiction medicine at Lifespan.
Dr. Soske, a person in long-term recovery from alcohol and drug addiction, is an award-winning educator and mixed-methods researcher. He is the author or co-author of four books and has collaborated on medical research published in academic journals. His wide range of research specialties include racial justice in harm reduction work, the practice of addiction medicine, and designing solutions for institutional crisis.
He is co-investigator on EMPOWER, a US Centers for Disease Control research project evaluating the role of community health care workers in the emergency departments. He collaborates widely with harm reduction, recovery, and other community-based groups. He works frequently with Second Act, a collective of artists who use film, theater, and drama therapy to address stigma surrounding addiction and substance use.
Before joining Lifespan, Dr. Soske was a founding member of the Community-Engaged Research Core of the Center of Biomedical Research Excellence (COBRE) on Opioids and Overdose. He served as director of research with Lifespan Transitions Clinic, which is part of a national network of primary care clinics supporting formerly incarcerated patients. Previously, he was the director of advocacy, education, and research with RICARES, a harm reduction and recovery advocacy organization.
He earned a doctoral degree in African studies from the University of Toronto and a master’s degree in comparative literature from the University of California, Berkeley. He completed a postdoctoral fellowship at Wits Institute for Social and Economic Research in Johannesburg, South Africa, and was a AW Mellon Visiting Scholar at the University of the Western Cape in Cape Town. Most recently, he was the Systems of Care Fellow at the Center for Complexity at the Rhode Island School of Design in Providence.