Anne-Marie Laslett, BDSc, MDSc, MPH
Research Fellow

Anne-Marie commenced work as the Director of the Range and Magnitude of Alcohol’s Harm to Others project at the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy in November 2007. Anne-Marie has worked in the Turning Point Epidemiology Unit since 1995 as the main investigator working on the Alcohol Statistics Handbook series on alcohol availability, patterns of alcohol use, and alcohol-related mortality, morbidity, road crashes and assaults.

Prior to joining Turning Point, Anne-Marie graduated as a dentist, completed a Master’s of Public Health and undertook a Public Health Traineeship in the Department of Human Services, where she worked in protective services, alcohol and drug services, sexual health, mothers' and children's health, and cancer and injury epidemiology. She is currently enrolled in a PhD (Public Health).

Areas of interest
Population alcohol and drug use and alcohol and drug-related harm; oral health; multicultural health; child and family health; consumer satisfaction; the influence of setting, socioeconomic and other risk factors on drug related use and harm; and policy and program responses to harm.

Contact details
anne-marie.laslett@turningpoint.org.au
Phone 03 8413 8420

Michael Livingston, BappSc(Maths), BInfTech, BA(Hons)
Research Fellow

Michael is a Research Fellow at the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research.  Since joining the Centre in 2006, Michael has predominantly been involved in research examining the relationship between physical availability (particularly the density of alcohol outlets) and alcohol-related harms using a range of spatial and longitudinal statistical techniques.  In addition, Michael has undertaken a number of projects focusing on risky drinking amongst young people, including an analysis of recent trends and an examination of individual and environmental factors associated with regular high-risk drinking.

Michael has an undergraduate degree in mathematics and an honours degree in criminology. His honours thesis examined the offending trajectories of a birth cohort of young offenders and the relationship between child maltreatment and crime.  Michael previously worked at JMAG in the School of Criminology at Griffith University, developing simulation models of the juvenile justice and adult corrections systems in Queensland.  He is currently studying for a PhD in Public Health.

Areas of interest
Alcohol and violence; liquor licensing and the night-time economy; iIndividual and environmental determinants of alcohol-related harm; and quantitative methodologies.

Contact details
michael.livingston@turningpoint.org.au
Phone 03 8413 8407

Sharon Matthews, MSc, BSW, BA(Hons)
Research Fellow

Sharon has been conducting health-related research since 1994. In the UK, she worked on one of the major longitudinal cohort studies investigating social health inequalities and impacts to health across the life course. In Australia, she has specialised in substance use and has used a variety of large administrative data sets to examine trends in licit and illicit substance use and related-harms at the national, state and local government area level. She received funding to examine stability and change in women’s alcohol consumption using the Australian Longitudinal Study on Women’s Health. Currently she manages the local area analysis consultancies, as well as coordinating the Australian arm of a large international study examining cultural differences in alcohol use – the GENACIS project (Gender Alcohol and Culture; An International Study). In addition to her publications in the alcohol field, she has a strong publication record from her work on the UK 1958 cohort, as well as presenting at numerous conference and symposia nationally and internationally.

Areas of interest
Alcohol use and harm; social and cultural determinants of alcohol use; longitudinal analysis and local area analysis.

Contact details
sharon.matthews@turningpoint.org.au
Phone 03 8413 8410

Professor Robin Room, BA, MA, MSoc, PhD(Soc)
Professor of Social Research in Alcohol, School of Population Health, The University of Melbourne
Director, AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research, Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre

Robin was a researcher at what is now the Alcohol Research Group in Berkeley, California, a U.S. National Alcohol Research Centre, from 1963 to 1991, and became the Scientific Director from 1977 to 1991.  He was then Vice-President for Research at the Addiction Research Foundation of Ontario, Canada, from 1991 to 1998. In 1999 Robin was appointed professor and founding director of the Centre for Social Research on Alcohol and Drugs at Stockholm University. In March, 2006, he became Professor of Alcohol Policy Research at the School of Population Health of the University of Melbourne and the Director of the AER Centre for Alcohol Policy Research at Turning Point Alcohol and Drug Centre. Among his many awards is the Jellinek Memorial Award for Alcohol Studies. 

Areas of interest
Social, cultural and epidemiological studies of alcohol, drugs and gambling behaviour and problems; studies of social responses to alcohol and drug problems; and the effects of policy changes.  

Contact details
robin.room@turningpoint.org.au
Phone 03 8413 8430

Claire Wilkinson, BASc, DipModLang(Japanese)
Research Fellow

Claire began work at the Centre for Alcohol Policy Research in 2007. In her current role as a Research Fellow, Claire has been involved in assessing Australian attitudes towards alcohol policy and is exploring the rates and trends for victims and perpetrators of alcohol-related harm from an Australian National Survey.

In 2006, Claire was part of a research team conducting qualitative research in China on attitudes towards housing privatisation. She is on the programming committee for the Human Rights Arts and Film Festival, Australia and is currently enrolled in a Bachelor of Arts & Sciences (Psychology) honours degree.

Areas of interest
International alcohol policy

Contact details
claire.wilkinson@turningpoint.org.au
Phone 03 8413 8418