Our People

Our Management Team

Director – Professor Antonia Lyons

Antonia holds the Hugh Green Foundation Chair in Addiction Research and is the current Director of the Centre for Addiction Research in the School of Population Health. Her background is in health psychology, and she has previously worked at Victoria University of Wellington, Massey University and the University of Birmingham UK. Antonia works with multidisciplinary teams focusing on drinking cultures and behaviours across different age groups and the digital marketing of alcohol and other unhealthy products. She is currently leading a Marsden-funded project investigating the ways in which social media platforms that are designed to be addictive are being used to market addictive products to young people (aged 14-20) in Aotearoa New Zealand. Antonia is also working with other researchers to explore alcohol consumption in midlife, lay people’s views on the alcohol-cancer link, and Instagram influencer marketing of unhealthy products.

Professor
Chair in Addiction Research
Email: antonia.lyons@auckland.ac.nz
Phone: +64 (0) 9 923 9130

Associate Director – Associate Professor David Newcombe

Dr David Newcombe is Academic Director of postgraduate addiction programmes and Head of the Section of Social and Community Health in the School of Population Health, and Associate Director of the Centre for Addiction Research. He has been working in the addiction sector for over 20 years in various clinical and research roles both in Australia and New Zealand. Prior to moving to New Zealand, David was Senior Project Manager at the WHO Collaborating Centre for Research in the Treatment of Drug and Alcohol Problems at the University of Adelaide where he managed an international multisite evaluation of opioid pharmacotherapies for the treatment of opioid dependence and the Australian site of the validation of the WHO Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) study. His current research interests include: screening for problematic substance use and assessing the efficacy of brief interventions in different at risk groups; the clinical pharmacology and psychopharmacology of drugs of abuse; and clinical effectiveness of pharmacotherapies used to treat alcohol and drug problems.

Associate Professor
Social and Community Health
Email: d.newcombe@auckland.ac.nz
Phone: +64 (0) 9 923 6557

Associate Director – Associate Professor Natalie Walker

Associate Professor Natalie Walker is leader of the Addiction Research programme at the National Institute for Health Innovation (https://www.nihi.auckland.ac.nz/), and co-director of the Centre for Addiction Research. Natalie joined the University as a Research Fellow in 1995, and completed a PhD in cardiovascular epidemiology in 2000. Natalie has been the recipient of a Health Research Council Training Fellowship, a Heart Foundation Postdoctoral Research Fellowship, and the prestigious Heart Foundation Douglas Senior Fellowship in Heart Health. Her primary area of interest is the conduct of pragmatic, phase III, community-based, clinical trials to inform practice and policy, particularly in smoking cessation. She also undertakes research on vaping, alcohol, and methamphetamine use. She has a secondary interest in respiratory health, cardiovascular epidemiology (particularly peripheral vascular disease), and the use of novel technology in disease prevention and treatment. She is a member and fellow of the international Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT).

Associate Professor
Leader of the Addiction Research programme at the National Institute for Health Innovation
Email: n.walker@auckland.ac.nz

 

Associate Director – Professor Peter Adams

Peter Adams has a background in philosophy and clinical psychology and has worked as a practitioner in hospital, community and private practice settings. His research interests include: critical social theory, applied rhetoric, existential issues, family impacts of addictions, gender-based violence, industry conflicts of interest and public health approaches to gambling. He has published eight original sole-authored books including three on topics regarding addictions, two on existential issues, two on rhetoric and one on men’s violence. Peter is employed as a professor at the School of Population Health and is a Co-Director at the Centre for Addiction Research.

Professor
Social and Community Health
Email: p.adams@auckland.ac.nz
Phone: +64 (0) 9 923 6538