Michael Otto
Professor

- Title Professor
- Email mwotto@bu.edu
- Education PhD, University of New Mexico
Director: Translational Research Program
Michael W. Otto, Ph.D., is Professor in the Psychological and Brain Sciences department at Boston University. Dr. Otto has had a major career focus on developing and validating new psychosocial treatments for mood, anxiety, and substance use disorders. This work includes a translational research agenda investigating brain-behavior relationships in therapeutic learning. Attention to principles underlying behavior-change failures led him to an additional focus on health-behavior promotion, including investigations of addictive behaviors, medication adherence, sleep, and exercise. Dr. Otto has over 25 years of continuous funding from NIH, and has published over 500 articles, chapters, and books spanning his research interests. He has been identified as a “top producer” in the clinical empirical literature, an ISI Highly Cited Researcher, and recipient of the Distinguished Scientific Contributions to Clinical Psychology award from the American Psychological Association, Division 12 and the 2024 Outstanding Researcher award from the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies (ABCT). He is also recipient of a 2019 Elizabeth Hurlock Beckman Award for excellence in mentoring from the American Psychological Association and the 2023 Toy Caldwell-Colbert Award for Distinguished Educator in Clinical Psychology. Dr. Otto is past President of the Association for Behavioral and Cognitive Therapies and Past President of the American Psychological Association Division 12, and his service to the field was recognized in 2010 by an Outstanding Service Award from ABCT. Dr. Otto is a regular provider of continuing education and continuing medical education workshops across the United States. In addition, Dr. Otto has been a frequent consultant to industry, and the broad scope of his work has led to popular media coverage in the New York Times, Wall Street Journal, Scientific American-Mind, Runner’s World, Self, and Outside Magazine. He also a firm believer in team science and serves as founder of the Mechanistic Behavior Research Consortium and a member of the Exposure Therapy Consortium.
Information on Dr. Otto’s research publications can be found at the US National Library of Medicine.
Information on Dr. Otto’s books and treatment manuals can be found on Amazon.