16th Western Australian Drug and Alcohol Symposium
Keynote Speakers
The Working Out What Works Symposium will build on the success of fifteen previous Drug and Alcohol symposiums held in Western Australia. A variety of speakers will present evidence-based research in treatment, policy, prevention, harm reduction and law enforcement strategies.
Confirmed keynote speakers include:
Professor David Nutt
Professor David Nutt is currently Professor of Psychopharmacology and Head of the Department of Community Based Medicine at the University of Bristol.
He received his undergraduate training in medicine at Cambridge and Guy's Hospital, and continued training in neurology to MRCP. After completing his psychiatric training in Oxford, he continued there as a lecturer and then later as a Wellcome Senior Fellow in psychiatry. He then spent two years as Chief of the Section of Clinical Science in the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism in NIH, Bethesda, USA. On returning to England in 1988 he set up the Psychopharmacology Unit in Bristol, an interdisciplinary research grouping spanning the departments of Psychiatry and Pharmacology. Their main research interests are in the brain mechanisms underlying anxiety, depression and addiction and the mode of action of therapeutic drugs.
He is currently a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD), and Chair of its Technical Committee, on the Council and President-Elect of the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology (ECNP) and a Director of the ‘European Certificate in Anxiety and Mood Disorders’ and the ‘Masters in Affective Disorders’ Courses jointly administered by the Universities of Maastrict, Bristol and Florence. In addition, he is the Editor of the Journal of Psychopharmacology, advisor to the British National Formulary and a Past-President of the British Association of Psychopharmacology (BAP). He was also a member of the Independent Inquiry into the Misuse of Drugs Act 1971, chaired by Viscountess Runciman that reported in 2000 and a member of the Committee on Safety of Medicines (CSM) from 2000 – 2005. From January 2006 he has taken on the role as Director of Bristol Neuroscience.
Dr Dan Lubman
Dr Dan Lubman is Senior Lecturer in Addiction Psychiatry at the University of Melbourne. He heads the Substance Use Research and Recovery Focussed (SURRF) Program at ORYGEN Research Centre, where he leads a clinical research team focussed on investigating substance use and comorbidity in youth. This includes a number of pharmacological and psychological treatment trials in psychosis and depression, as well as neuropsychological and neuroimaging studies examining the neurobiology of addiction. A particular research interest is exploring the impact of substance use on adolescent brain development. Dr Lubman is Chair of the RANZCP Section of Addiction Psychiatry and is a scientific advisory board member of ANNA.
Gningala Yarran-Clanton
Gningala Yarran-Clanton dons wig and gown for appearances in WA Supreme and District Courts. The University of Western Australia Law graduate spent her first five years of her life at the Mount Magnet Aboriginal reserve. On relocating to Perth she completed Year 11, went to business college, married and had five daughters before enrolling, aged 31, in the UWA Pre-Law program.
During her time at UWA, Gningala won the highly-contested Gloria Brennan Scholarship for Aboriginal students. This scholarship was established in memory of one of the first Aboriginal graduates from UWA who was instrumental in setting up the Aboriginal Legal Service.
Today Gningala is the first Aboriginal State Prosecutor, she is involved in the Indigenous Law Students Mentoring Program and had been elected to Women Lawyers of Western Australia.
Professor Robin Room
Professor Robin Room is an Australian sociologist who was Director of the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley, California (1977-1991); Vice-President for Research at the Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, Canada (1991-1998); and Director of the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University (1999-2005). Now he is a professor in the School of Population Health, University of Melbourne and the Director of the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre. He has worked on social and epidemiological studies of alcohol, drugs and gambling, and studies of policy and other social responses to alcohol and drug problems.
Dr Don Weatherburn
Dr Don Weatherburn has been Director of the NSW Bureau of Crime Statistics and Research in Sydney since 1988. He is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia and is an Adjunct Professor in the School of Social Science and Policy at the University of New South Wales.
Don graduated was awarded his Ph.D. by Sydney University in 1979. Prior to taking up his current position he was director of research at the NSW Judicial Commission. Before that he lectured in justice administration. His main interests lie in the economic and social correlates of crime, drug law enforcement, criminal justice administration and juvenile offending.
He has published two books: Delinquent-prone Communities (published by Cambridge University Press in 2001) and Law and Order in Australia: Rhetoric and Reality (published by Federation Press in 2004).
