Aaron Matthew White

Dr. Aaron Matthew White, 55, passed away unexpectedly in Rockville, MD, on November 18, 2025.

Aaron was born in Sandusky, Ohio, on May 30, 1970, and grew up in rural Vermillion, Ohio, in a house his father built. In youth, Aaron roamed the Ohio countryside with his dogs and his rifle, played outside with his brothers Justin and Jeff, and built forts and tunnels in the winter snow. Aaron was a uniquely intuitive, sensitive child who felt the world deeply, so much so that his grandparents believed he was psychic.

Aaron was a nationally recognized neuroscientist and alcohol-research expert whose work has significantly shaped modern understanding of how alcohol affects the developing brain. Over the course of his career, Aaron became one of the most widely cited voices on alcohol blackouts, youth drinking trends, binge-drinking risk, and the biology of intoxication. Underlying all of Aaron's professional accomplishments was his profound natural ability to synthesize complex information and distill it into accessible and practically applicable forms.

Aaron earned a Ph.D. in Biological Psychology from Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, where he began his research on the consequences of alcohol use. Aaron was beloved by his students and colleagues, and he received awards for his teaching and research. Aaron then completed post-doctoral training at Duke University in Durham, North Carolina, where he later became faculty. At Duke, Aaron connected his granular neuroscience work with practical applications for education and harm reduction around alcohol use, particularly for adolescents. To this end, Aaron designed AlcoholEdu, an online program for preventing alcohol misuse among college students that has become a required feature of new-student orientations at universities nationally. Aaron's work on this program has provided potentially life-saving information on the risks of alcohol consumption to millions of college students.

Aaron then went on to devote 17 years serving as the Senior Scientific Advisor to the Director of the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). In this role, he helped translate emerging research into accessible, evidence-based guidance for clinicians, educators, policymakers, and the public. He contributed to key NIAAA publications, including resources for families and tools aimed at reducing risky drinking among teens and young adults. His research on alcohol blackouts was frequently referenced in The New York Times, The Washington Post, NPR, and The Atlantic. Best-selling author, Malcolm Gladwell even interviewed Aaron for a chapter in his book, Talking with Strangers.

Aaron was an intellectual giant, an extraordinary father, and a model of integrity. With his remarkable intuition and compassion, Aaron always knew what to say to make his friends, family, and colleagues feel loved and cared for. Ever the comedian, Aaron had a quick wit and a seemingly infinite supply of dad jokes that he would regularly share in our family group chat. Aaron was deeply spiritual and maintained a profound connection to a source of pure love that he believed was core to both the individual self and the universe at large. On this material plane, Aaron loved riding his electric bike, testing out various kitchen gadgets, and investigating UFO phenomena. He was a dedicated collector of flashlights, an avid writer and reader of scientific literature, and a devout father of two children and a dozen plants. Aaron held space for the full individuality of everyone he met, a heavy burden to bear in a world of immense complexity and suffering, and he tirelessly championed humility and love. Above all, though, Aaron found his deepest purpose and meaning in being a father to his children, Avery and Skyler.

Aaron is survived by his two children, Avery White and Skyler White, close friend and mother of his children, Renee White, his brothers, Justin White and Jeff White, and his mother in law, Joan Mylek. Aaron is preceded in death by his father, Danny Leonard White, and his mother, Ann-Ellen White.