International Programme in Addiction Studies

Dr Anna Williams is a researcher and lecturer in addiction sciences at King’s College London. She is the Programme leader of the International Master of Science in Addiction Studies (IPAS) and an expert in distance learning. Dr Williams graduated as a psychologist in Brazil, where she also completed her MSc in Psychiatry under the supervision of Prof. Pechansky. Her research in Brazil focused on the development of psychosocial interventions and assessing HIV risk exposure among crack-cocaine users living in shantytowns. She has a PhD in Addiction Science which she completed at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience under the supervision of Prof. Strang and Prof. Marsden. Her PhD project focused on delivering a harm reduction intervention to reduce mortality among heroin users. The intervention, tested through a multisite RCT, was the distribution of naloxone for service users and their family members. This intervention has been endorsed by the WHO and her PhD work has been published in high impact scientific journals. She has also offered support to the establishment of a number of take-home naloxone programmes in the United Kingdom. Dr Williams is also an expert in developing valid and reliable measures, having developed two scales during her PhD (Opioid Overdose Knowledge and Attitudes Scales). More recently Dr. Williams has acted as an external consulted for the World Health Organisation (on overdose management and on the updated of the mhGAP) and also for the United Nations Office for Drug and Crime (looking at the link between HIV and stimulant drugs). Dr Williams maintains international collaborations with universities in Brazil and the United States. She is also a reviewer for several main journals in the Addictions field.   She is currently involved in research in the area of drug-related deaths, teaching and training activities via distance learning.

John Marsden is Professor of Addictions Psychology and Head of Department, Addictions, at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN) at King's College London. 

John Marsden is a clinical research psychologist with a research focus on the study of behavioural and pharmacological therapies for substance use disorders. He has held professional appointments in the addictions field since 1987. He has research interests in treatment systems research, psychometrics, and psychiatric epidemiology.

John is the European editor of Addiction. He was a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of drugs (2005-2009) and a founding member of the Independent Scientific Committee on Drugs.

Professor Sir John Strang is one of the UK’s leading experts in addiction. He is the Head of the Addictions Department at King’s College London and Leader of the Addictions Clinical Academic Group of the Kings Health Partners AHSC (Academic Health Science Centre). Professor Strang has been a Consultant Psychiatrist in addictions treatment for over 30 years, mainly at the South London & Maudsley NHS Trust. He has had extensive experience as a Lead Clinician and Clinical Director, in charge of a wide range of treatments in community and residential settings.

Professor Strang’s area of particular clinical expertise is heroin and cocaine addiction. His current research interests include: setting up supervised injecting clinics for managing entrenched heroin addicts who cannot otherwise be engaged in treatment; the investigation of new approaches to preventing drug-overdose deaths, involving drug users and family members; developing a UK evidence base for contingency management in addiction treatment; and incentive-based interventions to improve treatments to reduce drug use and associated harms.

Prof Strang has over 400 papers published. He is one of only six Addiction Research scientists outside North America who is listed in isihighlycited.com. For a full publications listing, please refer to: www.highlycited.com.

 In addition to being the Academic Lead for the KCL Addictions Department, Leonie is a Senior Lecturer at the National Addiction Centre, Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN). She completed her PhD at Royal Holloway, University of London. Following her PhD, Leonie worked as Research Associate at the National Centre for Smoking Cessation and Training (NCSCT) and the Tobacco Research Group at University College London. She joined the National Addictions Centre in 2013 and in 2015 became a Cancer Research UK (CRUK)/BUPA Foundation Fellow.

Leonie has conducted research into smoking cessation in clinical practice, its effectiveness and ways to improve it. Currently, one area of research is smoking and mental health, the area of her Fellowship. This includes projects to assess population data (in collaboration with the Smoking Toolkit Study), evaluations of clinical practice and the effectiveness of interventions. A second area of research is vaping (e-cigarettes); the Nicotine Research Group has been conducting a unique longitudinal survey and Leonie has been awarded grants for additional waves. Leonie was also a co-author of a 2015 Public Health England report on e-cigarettes.

Leonie is Assistant Editor for the journal Addiction and as Associate Editor for Nicotine & Tobacco Research and was named Reviewer of the Year 2016 for Tobacco Control. She also acts as peer reviewer for a wide range of other journals and grant application schemes, including CRUK, NIHR, Wellcome and the Health Research Council of New Zealand. From 2014 to 2015, Leonie worked as Research Adviser for the CRUK Policy Research Centre for Cancer Prevention. Leonie is co-chair of the Treatment Research Network Advisory Committee of the Society for Research on Nicotine and Tobacco (SRNT).

A list of Leonie’s publications can be found on the King's Research Portal.