About
I joined the University of Liverpool in April 2018 to take up the role of Professor and Head of Department of Sociology, Social Policy and Criminology. Immediately prior to this, I was Professor and Director of the Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, in Brisbane and Gold Coast Australia, and before that, Professor of Sociology, and Director of the Drug and Alcohol Research Unit at the University of Plymouth. I have more than 30 years research experience in the drug and alcohol field and have written extensively and broadly in this area - particularly on the machinations of illicit drug markets, nationally and internationally, and across different cultural and environmental spaces. My research is strongly inter/multidisciplinary and boasts ongoing collaborations with forensic chemists/scientists, medics, public health practitioners and researchers, as well as, perhaps more predictably, disciplines across the humanities and social sciences. I am a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences (FAcSS).
Although I retired from full-time employment at Liverpool in September 2020 where I am now Emeritus Professor and Honorary Professor, I returned to a 14% role in June 2022 to act as Lead CI on the Policing Vulnerability in County lines Drug Markets project in the new £10m Economic & Social Research Council (ESRC) funded Centre of Excellence (the Vulnerability and Policing Futures Research Centre) led by PI's Prof Adam Crawford (York & Leeds Universities) and Prof Charlie Lloyd (York University). This role continues until April 2027, in the first instance.
In 2013 I undertook a rapid ethnographic and cross-cultural observational tour of six Asian countries/cities (China/Shanghai; India/Mumbai; Indonesia/Jakarta; Japan/Tokyo; Malaysia/Kuala Lumpur South Korea/Seoul) looking at the nature and meaning of public spitting in those locales. I am currently an Adjunct Professor of the Griffith Criminology Institute, Griffith University, Australia as well as at the School of Justice, Queensland University of Technology, Brisbane, Australia.
Please see my research pages for an insight into my research interests, activities, outputs, and experience.