Amy is a Senior Research Fellow / National Health and Medical Research Council Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. She leads Drug Trends, Australia’s illicit drug monitoring system. As part of Drug Trends, she conducts interviews with people who use drugs, analyses existing data, and collates online data (e.g., drug listings on darknet marketplaces) to identify emerging trends in drug use, markets and harms.

Sonja is a Research Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. Her primary research interest is the relationship between substance use disorders and mental health conditions among at-risk groups. She currently leads the UnLEASH study (Understanding Lesbian, bisexual and queer women’s Experiences of Alcohol, Substance use and Health).

Raimondo is an Associate Professor in the School of Medicine at the University of Tasmania. He is a registered psychologist, lecturer in psychology, and has been involved in the drug and alcohol sector for over a decade, in numerous research, evaluation, and consultancy roles. His main research interests include the cognitive consequences of use of medications and illicit drugs; illicit drug market trends; and approaches to reduce the harms associated with substance use. 

Nadine has over 25 years of experience in the addiction medicine field. She is the Director of the National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs and the Clinical Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital in Sydney. Nadine is a registered medical practitioner and Fellow of the Australasian Chapter of Addiction Medicine (FAChAM) of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians (RACP). She conducts research which aims to build the evidence base for health interventions for marginalised populations, and is currently identifying ways to help people experiencing problems with stimulant use.

Louisa is a Deputy Director of the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. Louisa uses various innovative methods to identify the harms associated with illicit drugs use, and to try and reduce mortality and morbidity from drug use.  She is an investigator on Drug Trends, is involved in the Global Burden of Disease study, and regularly advises national and international governments and agencies, including the World Health Organization and various United Nations agencies.

Caitlin Hughes is an Associate Professor in criminology and drug policy and at the Centre for Crime Policy and Research, Flinders University. Her research focuses on 1) drug laws and drug law reform (including depenalisation, decriminalisation, legalisation), 2) criminal justice policies (including policing and alternatives to arrest) and 3) drug markets, outlining what laws and policies are deployed, how they operate in practice, the impacts of this investment and identifying avenues for more effective responses that can reduce drug-related health, social and criminal justice harms.

Rachel is a Research Fellow at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre, UNSW Sydney. She was the National Co-Ordinator of the Illicit Drug Reporting System and Ecstasy and Related Drugs Reporting System (2011-2018). Her current research interests include illicit drug surveillance, the new psychoactive substances (NPS) market in Australia, cryptomarkets, and harm reduction.

Mohamed is a Research Fellow at the Kirby Institute, UNSW Sydney. Mohamed’s earlier research focused on identifying underlying factors that exacerbate HIV, sexually transmissible infections, and harms associated with drug use. His current research focuses on several clinical and behavioural COVID-19 projects (e.g. the impact of COVID-19 on vulnerable communities in Australia).

Monica is a Senior Research Fellow in the Social and Global Studies Centre at RMIT University. She is the Australian lead for the Global Drug Survey, and she leads research engagement at the international harm-reduction community, Bluelight.org. Monica also volunteers for The Loop Australia, a not-for-profit organisation aiming to provide drug checking or testing at festivals and in communities across Australia.

Paul is the Program Director of Behaviour and Health Risks program at the Burnet Institute. Paul has more than 20 years of experience working in public health research into alcohol and drug use. Paul has played a key role in the expansion of take-home naloxone training programs (a medicine that reverses opioid overdose) across Australia and worked with the World Health Organisation to develop international guidelines for overdose prevention. He is also an investigator on Drug Trends, Australia’s illicit drug monitoring system.

Caroline is based in the Institute for Social Science Research, at the University of Queensland. She has worked in the addiction field for over 15 years in both research and service provision, and is an investigator on Drug Trends. Her research interests include the epidemiology and community impact of alcohol and other drug use and mental health disorders; community health prevention; and, health service design, uptake and evaluation. She is particularly interested in understanding the relationship between substance use and mental health, and how services can be better designed to address both needs.