Speakers
Speakers are listed in alphabetical order.
Steve Allsop
National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University
Learn more
Steve Allsop has been involved in alcohol and other drug prevention, treatment and policy research and practice, and service management for over 40 years. He has been the Director of two Australian national drug research centres, in Adelaide (National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction - NCETA - until 2000) and subsequently Perth (National Drug Research Institute - NDRI - until 2016), and for many years he worked with the Western Australian Government Drug and Alcohol Office. He is Emeritus Professor at NDRI, Curtin University, and other roles include Chair of the Alcohol and other Drug Advisory Board (WA) Board Director Australian Drug Foundation, Member UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs, Member Board Relationships Australia WA and Member National Suicide Prevention Office Advisory Board.
Monica Barratt
National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University
Learn more
Associate Professor Monica Barratt is an NHMRC Emerging Leadership fellow at Australia's National Drug Research Institute (Curtin University), recognised internationally for generating policy and practice relevant insights into the reduction of health harms for people who use unregulated drugs. Barratt has published 150+ peer-reviewed articles with over 10K citations. She is the National Research Lead for The Loop Australia, a non-profit service provider of drug checking in Australia. She serves on the boards of directors of 3 harm reduction charities: Bluelight Communities Ltd (Chair), Students for Sensible Drug Policy Australia (Treasurer), and the Australian Psychedelic Society (Member).
Ron Borland
School of Psychology, Deakin University
Learn more
Ron Borland PhD is a Professor of Psychology in the School of Psychology at Deakin University. Prior to that he spent most of his career as a research scientist at the Cancer Council Victoria, 19 years as the Nigel Gray Distinguished Fellow in Cancer Prevention. He has published over 500 peer-reviewed papers, most on aspects of health behaviour change. He has been listed in the Web of Science list of the World’s most influential scientists. He takes a broad systems approach to behaviour and behaviour change, integrating efforts at individual and population levels. His expertise spans the impact of social and regulatory impacts on behaviour through to the challenges individuals personally face. He is best known for his work in tobacco control. He has developed a range of mass-disseminable smoking cessation interventions, including the QuitCoach a demonstrably effective automated intervention. He is one of the Principal Investigators of the International Tobacco Control Policy Evaluation Project: an international collaboration that has helped quantify the impacts of government policies on smoking that has also led to better understanding of the challenges of supporting smoking cessation and preventing relapse. He has a special interest in harm minimisation strategies and strategies to assist highly disadvantaged groups. He has developed CEOS theory: a comprehensive theory of Hard to Maintain Behaviour Change.
Jacqueline Bowden
National Centre for Education and Training on
Addiction (NCETA)
Learn more
Professor Bowden is the Director of the National Centre for Education and Training on Addiction (NCETA), a collaboration between
Flinders University and the Australian Government Department of Health
Disability and Ageing. Prof Bowden has over two decades of experience in alcohol and other drugs behavioural, policy research and monitoring.
Mike Christmass
Next Step Drug and Alcohol Services, East Metropolitan Health Service; Fiona Stanley
Hospital, South Metropolitan Health Service
Learn more
Dr Christmass is a Fellow of the Chapter of Addiction Medicine (RACP) and the RACGP and holds a PhD in research science. He works as a Consultant in Addiction Medicine with the community substance use disorder treatment service for Fremantle and its surrounds, as well as with Fiona Stanley Hospital Alcohol and Other Drug Consultation-Liaison service. Dr Christmass is Adjunct Clinical Associate Professor at Curtin University Medical School and Adjunct Research Fellow at the National Drug Research Institute. His research collaborations include partnerships with the Kirby Institute (UNSW), the National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs, and the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre (UNSW). He is the current clinical member of the Community Program for Opioid Pharmacotherapy Management Committee in WA. In clinical, educational, and research work, Dr Christmass is dedicated to advancing evidence-based treatment for substance use disorders and improving health outcomes for marginalised individuals and communities.
Nabarun Dasgupta
University of North Carolina
Learn more
Dr. Nabarun Dasgupta is a Gillings Innovation Fellow and Senior Scientist at the University of North Carolina (USA) and winner of the MacArthur “Genius Grant” Fellowship. He holds a PhD in Epidemiology from UNC, and was named to the 2026 TIME100 Health list of most influential people in health globally. Dr. Dasgupta is a scientist and innovator with a passion for telling true stories about health with numbers. At the UNC Street Drug Analysis Lab, over 20,000 donated drug samples from harm reduction programs have been analyzed with molecular precision to create a real-time understanding of the illicit drug supply. Through his work, Dasgupta aims to amplify community voices in public health, paired with powerful visual information displays.
Andrew Davies
Homeless H
Learn more
Dr Andrew Davies OAM is a General Practitioner and Medical Director of Homeless Healthcare. Dr Davies established Homeless Healthcare in 2008; the first service of its kind nationally, and the largest specialist homelessness primary care service in Australia. Since it began, Homeless Healthcare has supported over 15 000 people experiencing homelessness. Andrew has embedded a strong focus on the social determinants of health within Homeless Healthcare, and the critical need for safe stable housing to improve the health of people experiencing homelessness. Over the last 18 years, Homeless Healthcare has expanded its services to provide clinics and healthcare across a wide range of community settings, including hospital in-reach, clinics in homelessness drop-in centres, transitional accommodation services and domestic violence shelters, street outreach, and home visits to people recently housed. Most recently, Homeless Healthcare has established Australia’s first fully medical respite residential facility for homeless patients discharged from hospital. Andrew is highly regarded nationally and internationally for his leadership on homelessness and health, and his recent OAM for services to homelessness is testimony to this.
Paul Dessauer
Harm Reduction WA
Learn more
Paul is CEO of Peer Based Harm Reduction WA (PBHR WA), Western Australia’s only peer-based consumer-led AOD service, which provides free health and harm reduction services for people who use drugs. Paul has worked at PBHR WA for >25 years, delivering and coordinating outreach services, overdose prevention, take-home-naloxone, and peer-education projects, while providing consultancy to researchers and policy makers and workforce development to other front-line agencies. Paul has previously worked as a Drug & Alcohol Officer for the State-wide Specialist Aboriginal Mental Health Service; an educator & consultant for the Transnational Institute (in China and Myanmar); and a trainer for the Burnet Institute. Paul is committed to addressing stigmatisation directed at, improving the health equity of, and promoting the fundamental human rights of, people who use drugs. In all his work Paul strives to bring the voices and living experience of people who use drugs to research, policy, and practice.
Michael Doyle
Edith Collins Centre, The University Of Sydney
Learn more
Professor Michael Doyle is a Bardi Man and a research-focused academic at the University of Sydney. He has worked in Aboriginal health for over 20 years, commencing his career as an Aboriginal Health Worker at the Broome Regional Aboriginal Medical Service. Michael moved into Aboriginal health research in 2008 and utilises a mixed-methods approach in his work. Presently, Michael is the Head of the First Nations health team at the Edith Collins Centre for translational research in alcohol, drugs, and toxicology. His research aims to improve health service delivery for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people who use alcohol and/or other drugs. Michael's research also has a focus on improving health service delivery for those in the criminal justice system. Michael is an active member of the Aboriginal community and has served on Aboriginal community-controlled organisation boards. He served as co-chair of the Aboriginal Health and Medical Research Council of NSW's Human Research Ethics Committee 2021 to 2026 (May).
Nadine Ezard
National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs & St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney
Learn more
Professor Nadine Ezard is an Addiction Medicine Specialist (MBBS, BA, MPH, PhD, FAChAM), inaugural Director of the Australian National Centre for Clinical Research on Emerging Drugs (NCCRED), and Clinical Director of the Alcohol and Drug Service at St Vincent’s Hospital Sydney. Her clinical work serves people with a variety of substance use disorders in inpatient, outpatient and community settings, and strives to embed research into clinical practice. Nadine has more than 30 years of clinical and research experience in addiction medicine and public health practice in Australian and international contexts including for the World Health Organization, the United Nations High Commissioner for Refugees, and the United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime. She is a worldwide recognised researcher in substance use and its translation into consumer-focused harm-reduction public health interventions, models of care and policy for marginalised populations.
Coral Gartner
Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame, School of Public Health, The University of Queensland
Learn more
Professor Coral Gartner is an international expert in tobacco control policy and is the Director of the NHMRC Centre of Research Excellence on Achieving the Tobacco Endgame (Tobacco Endgame CRE), an Australian Research Council Future Fellow, and the Chair of the Interdisciplinary Tobacco Endgame Research Network funded by an NHMRC Synergy Grant. She the chair of the Editorial Advisory Board for the BMJ journal, Tobacco Control, after serving as a senior editor from 2012-2018 and then the Australasian regional editor. She is a Past President of the Oceania Chapter of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT-O).
Rachael Hill
Independent Lived Experience Leader, Speaker
and Systems Change Advisor
Learn more
Rachael Hill is a lived experience advocate, speaker, and systems change advisor based in Melbourne. Her expertise is shaped by her experiences navigating alcohol and other drug challenges, mental health, homelessness, family violence, child protection, and the criminal legal system, as well as her journey of rebuilding her life while advocating for systemic change.
Today, Rachael advocates for systems change through advisory groups, co-design projects, public speaking engagements, and policy discussions, bringing lived experience expertise into spaces where decisions are made about the lives of people and communities. She is passionate about ensuring lived and living experience is recognised as a form of expertise alongside research, clinical knowledge, and policy evidence.
Rachael has spoken at Parliament House in Canberra on the importance of lived experience leadership in systems reform and has contributed to national conversations on mental health, justice, stigma, and social inclusion. Her work focuses on the gaps between systems and the people they are designed to support, particularly where alcohol and other drug issues intersect with trauma, housing instability, family violence, and social disadvantage.
Outside of her advocacy work, Rachael enjoys writing, storytelling, spending time with her two children, and spoiling her very loved Maltese-Shih Tzu. She is currently working towards writing her own memoir and believes that stories have the power not only to heal individuals, but to change systems.
Her guiding belief is simple: people aren't too complex—systems are.
Didier Jutras-Aswad
Department of Psychiatry, Centre hospitalier de l'Université de Montréal
Department of Psychiatry and Addiction, Université de Montréal
Learn more
Didier Jutras-Aswad is an addiction psychiatrist and Professor of Psychiatry and Addictology at Université de Montréal, as well as Chief of the Department of Psychiatry at the Centre hospitalier de l’Université de Montréal (CHUM). He is also a Principal Scientist at the CHUM Research Centre and the Nominated Principal Investigator leading the Quebec node of the Canadian Research Initiative in Substance Matters network. Dr. Jutras-Aswad’s clinical and research work focuses on substance use disorders, concurrent mental health disorders, and innovative models of care. He has led and collaborated on multiple national and international initiatives, including pancanadian multi-site clinical trials. His work has contributed to advancing evidence-based treatments, clinical guidelines, and health system responses for people living with substance use disorders. He is actively involved in Canadian and international collaborations aimed at improving policy, research, and clinical care in substance use-related matters.
Emmanuel Kuntsche
La Trobe University
Learn more
Professor Emmanuel Kuntsche, the Director of the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (CAPR) at La Trobe University Melbourne, is an expert in the development of cognition and social influences of alcohol use from early childhood into adulthood. His other research interests include the measurement of both alcohol use (e.g., using ecological momentary assessment, smartphone apps, and transdermal monitors) and alcohol-related cognition (e.g., using the Alcohol Expectancy Task he developed). He also pioneered artificial intelligence to investigate alcohol exposure in digital media. He has received career awards in Australia, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland, and from the international Kettil Bruun Society.
Suzanne Nielsen
Monash Addiction Research
Centre, Monash University
Learn more
Professor Suzanne Nielsen (BPharm BPharmSc[Hons] PhD MPS FANZCAP (AddMed, Research)) is the Deputy Director of the Monash Addiction Research Centre (Monash University), and a registered pharmacist with extensive experience in the area of drug treatment and harm reduction. Suzi is passionate about improving treatment for opioid dependence. Over her career she has worked on clinical guidelines, supported policy change and is currently working on established new medicines and models of care aimed at increasing access to quality evidence-based treatment.
Tracey Potiki
Kai Tahu, Kāti Mamoe, Waitaha
International Indigenous Drug Policy Alliance/Kaiwhakahaere for Whare Tukutuku, Te Rau Ora
Learn more
Tracey is an experienced manager and a dedicated advocate for whānau experiencing alcohol and other drug (AOD) harm. Over the course of more than 30 years, she has tirelessly worked to bring about positive changes and influence better care pathways for whānau, hapū, and iwi. With a background in Kaupapa Māori environments, Tracey is driven by the conviction that existing systems perpetuating unequal advantages across societal segments are inherently unjust and unacceptable. She strongly advocates for increased integration of Te Tiriti o Waitangi principles into structures, systems, and policies, recognising their potential to create new pathways for empowering and uplifting whānau Māori to pursue their aspirations of oranga.
Currently serving as the Kaiwhakahaere at Whare Tukutuku, the National Māori Addiction Centre within the korowai of Te Rau Ora.
Jennifer Schumann
Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine,
Monash University
Learn more
Associate Professor Jennifer Schumann is Head of the Drug Intelligence Unit at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Associate Professor in Monash University’s Department of Forensic Medicine. She is a forensic pharmacologist and toxicologist bringing over 20 years experience investigating drug-related harms in the community, spanning forensic science, public health surveillance and policy translation. She has published extensively, presented her work internationally, and received numerous awards in recognition of her research impact, including a 2019 Churchill Fellowship and the 2024 Achievement Award from The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT). Jennifer is President of the Forensic and Clinical Toxicology Association (FACTA), Board Member (Oceania) for TIAFT, and serves on multiple government and international advisory groups. Her research has stimulated public debate, engaged national and international media, and directly informed changes in Australian drug, alcohol and violence-prevention policy and practice.
Nic Taylor
National Drug Research Institute,
Curtin University, Australia
Learn more
Dr Nic Taylor is a Research Fellow at the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University. His work involves the use of epidemiological data and field research methods to monitor alcohol consumption trends across Australia and to track trends in alcohol-related harm. His research interests include alcohol pricing and taxation, illicit alcohol markets, alcohol policy evaluation, alcohol-related aggression, alcohol-related emergency department presentations, nightlife policy, alcohol home delivery, and youth drinking trends.
James Tidder
Next Step Drug and Alcohol Services,
East Metropolitan Health Service
Learn more
Dr James Tidder trained as an Addiction Psychiatrist in Edinburgh and South East Scotland before working as Consultant and Clinical Lead for the NHS Borders Addiction service. In NHS Borders he led significant service change around the treatment of Opioid Use Disorder with the introduction of same day low threshold prescribing and an assertive outreach model, as well as supporting the development and role out of the Scottish Medication Assisted Treatment Standards nationally. He moved from the UK to Perth WA in 2024 and worked as an Addiction Psychiatrist at Fiona Stanley Hospital before moving to Next Step Drug and Alcohol Service in 2026. He currently is a member of the WA Alcohol and Other Drugs Advisory Board and continues to be passionate about seeking to improve access to and the quality of both mental health and AOD care.
René Vytialingam
Next Step Drug and Alcohol Services, East Metropolitan Health Service
Learn more
Dr René Vytialingam (MBBS FRACGP, FAChAM) is a Consultant in Addiction Medicine and Head of Department at Next Step Drug and Alcohol Services. His clinical roles include the Next Step East Perth Outpatient Clinic, the Inpatient Withdrawal Unit and the Drug and Alcohol Youth Service. He is the Chair for the WA Community Program for Opioid Pharmacotherapy (CPOP) Management Committee. Over the last few years, René has supported changes and improved access to opioid dependence treatment at Next Step Services, hospitals and the community.
Key Deadlines:
Scholarship Application Deadline: 5 July 2026
Late Breaker Abstract Deadline: 27 July 2026
Early Bird Registration Deadline: 31 August 2026
Accommodation Deadline: 28 September 2026
Join the conference mailing list
Add your details to have the conference announcements delivered direct to your inbox.
#APSAD26
APSAD acknowledges that the conference is being held on the traditional lands of the Whadjuk Noongar people. We recognise Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people’s continuing connection to land, water, and community and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. APSAD acknowledges Sovereignty in this country has never been ceded. It always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Copyright 2024 by ASHM Conference & Events Division | apsadconference@ashm.org.au | +61 2 8204 0770