News

NDRI’s presence in Melbourne continues to grow, with renowned researcher Michael Livingston joining NDRI Melbourne in early 2021 and recruitment for a new a PhD Scholarship opportunity nearing completion.

NDRI re-established its presence in Melbourne in 2020, with Professor Paul Dietze appointed as Head of NDRI Melbourne as part a collaboration with the Burnet Institute.

Associate Professor Michael Livingston is well known to the AOD sector, joining NDRI from the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at La Trobe University.

“The opportunity to join NDRI was exciting for me,” he said. “I’m really looking forward to collaborating more closely with Tanya Chikritzhs on alcohol projects – she’s the best in the business and I’m excited that we’ll get to work together.

“Secondly, after over a decade working in alcohol policy, I’m interested in expanding my work to look at illicit drugs as well, and joining NDRI’s Melbourne office with Paul Dietze will open up new avenues for me in that space.”

Michael wants to spend his time at NDRI working on research that has real policy impact, and he is particularly interested in better understanding recent shifts in youth substance use to inform prevention and policy for young people.

In addition, NDRI is also offering a PhD Scholarship in Melbourne. The scholarship will support an outstanding PhD Scholar with a background in quantitative data analysis to conduct analyses of data collected on patterns of drug use and related harms through the SuperMIX cohort of people who inject drugs, the largest and only active cohort study of people who inject drugs ever undertaken in Australia.