Charles Mathias, Ph.D.

Charles W. Mathias, PhD is the Director for the Texas Consortium for the Non-Medical Drivers of Health at the Baker Institute for Public Policy at Rice University. Charles’s role is to convene researchers, practitioners, and policymakers across Texas to advance the integration of non-medical interventions into the healthcare delivery system. Prior to joining the Texas Consortium, Charles served for 20 years in the University of Texas system as a behavioral health researcher and tenured Professor. His subject matter expertise is on people experiencing mental illness, substance use, and their interaction with state and local safety net systems. He was a Robert Wood Johnson Foundation Health Policy Fellow (2019-2020), where he worked as a staffer in the US Senate during the start of the COVID-19 public health emergency. Following this fellowship, he was appointed as the policy director for the National Rural Telementoring Center. He has provided invited testimony to the Texas State Senate and the National Transportation Highway Safety Administration. As a Rapid Response Network member at the Research-to-Policy Collaboration, he contributes to policy analyses on behavioral health, substance use, and their interaction with the social determinants of health. Dr. Mathias has a BS in Psychology from Indiana University and an MS and PhD from the University of New Orleans in Applied Biopsychology.