About Dr. Thomas

Dr. Dave Thomas began his research career in the intramural research program at the National Institute of Dental and Craniofacial Research (then National Institute of Dental Research) as a predoctoral then postdoctoral fellow conducting research on the impact of opioids on pain and pruritus. Dr. Thomas went on to conduct 2 years of research on opioids and pain at the University of Chicago. In 1995, Dr. Thomas joined the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) where he managed much of NIDA’s pain and opioid research efforts. He was the Co-Chair of the NIDA Prescription Opioids and Pain Workgroup, which fosters pain and opioid research and education. He is also a founding member of the National Institutes of Health (NIH) Pain Consortium, which promotes pain research across the NIH. He is also a member of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) Behavioral Health Coordination Committee Prescription Opioids Subcommittee, National Pain Strategy Working Group on Provider Education, and the Interagency Pain Research Coordination Committee. Dr. Thomas served as the NIH liaison to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) in the development of the CDC guidelines on opioid prescribing for chronic pain. Dr. Thomas led the NIH Pain Consortium Centers of Excellence in Pain Education, which is promoting pain education in medical, dental, nursing, pharmacy, and other professional schools. In 2019, Dr. Thomas was awarded the Emma and Jon Bonica Public Service Award by the American Pain Society. And most recently, he has joined the NIH Office of Research on Women’s Health (ORWH) as a Senior Advisor to the Director. At the ORWH, Dr. Thomas is a member of the NIH Maternal Mortality Task Force, serves on the HHS Maternal Health Working Group, and is participating in the trans-NIH Implementing a Maternal health and PRegnancy Outcomes Vision for Everyone (IMPROVE) initiative to support research on how to reduce preventable maternal mortality. 

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