The Team
Innovation happens when diverse disciplines converge. That is why our dedicated multi-disciplinary team has expertise spanning research, policy, technology, management, finance and growth.
David Badcock
CEO
David Badcock has held strategic positions in the substance misuse treatment sector for over 15 years. During this time he has met and worked with thousands of individuals who have turned their lives around to lead healthy, successful lives free from the burden of drug and alcohol addiction.
Dr. Anne Schlag
Head of research
Dr Anne Katrin Schlag is a Chartered Psychologist and Head of Research at Drug Science. She completed her PhD in Psychology at the London School of Economics and Political Science, before working as Lecturer at King’s College London where she developed her expertise across the spectrum of science and policy making, risk perception, risk management and risk communication. She holds Honorary Fellowships at both Imperial College London and King’s College London.
Within her role at Drug Science, she leads the research for the Medical Cannabis Working Group, focusing on controversies surrounding medical cannabis, the improvement of patient access, and the continued development of education and stakeholder communication about medical cannabis. Dr Schlag is currently working on progressing the scientific evidence base of medical cannabis to include Patient-Reported Outcomes, observational studies (such as T21) and the application of Multi-Criteria Decision Analysis to assess the benefits and safety of medical cannabis.
James Bunn
Communications Manager
James Bunn is the Communications Manager for Drug Science. After studying Law at university, he became aware of the injustice and inadequacy of the laws that govern drug policy in the UK. He has worked for multiple charities and Not-for-profit organisations in this field, including Release, The Beckley Foundation, The Students for Sensible Drug Policy and Talking Drugs. He is interested in the therapeutic use of psychedelics, harm reduction, and the dissemination of accurate information relating to psychoactive substances.
Dr. Pallab Seth
Managing editor Drug Science Journal
Dr Pallab Seth is currently Managing Editor for Drug Science, Policy and Law and Journal of Psychopharmacology with Prof David J Nutt (Editor-in-Chief) in the Division of Brain Sciences, Faculty of Medicine at Imperial College. He joined Imperial in 2006. He has Postdoctoral training in the laboratories of Professor Kenneth J Smith and Professor Sandra E File at King’s College London.
Twenty21 Team
Project Twenty21 is committed to scientific excellence and the development of independent scientific evidence. It is supported by a scientific oversight board, a Drug Science Twenty21 team and patient representatives.
Amelia Middlemiss
Project Twenty21 DIRECTOR
Amelia spent 17 years in Pharmaceutical Sales, where her knowledge and skills were developed around the medical and health industry; working alongside GP’s, specialists, and commissioning bodies. This role provided insight into the needs of the health service – to help patients take a role in reducing their health harms; also providing insight into patient’s needs – when often trying to understand complex medical topics.
More recent roles Amelia has undertaken are; Clinical Advisor around Medical Cannabis, AHSN Primary Care Demonstrator Site Programme Manager, Project Manager for the Reducing Harm from Alcohol programme at the Wessex AHSN; focusing on alcohol related liver disease and the creation of alcohol harm identification patient materials, secondary care audit tools and staff and patient training materials.
Mags Houston
Project Twenty21 Clinical Manager
As Twenty21 Clinical Manager, Mags is the key clinical liaison for Drug Science’s medical cannabis study, helping to grow the knowledge of clinicians in medical cannabis products (CBMP) available for them to prescribe to registered patients. Alongside this, she works closely with Heroic Hearts Project UK, as they grow as an independent organisation and gain charitable status. She also curates and hosts events for The Psychedelic Society (UK) around drug policy, psychedelic science and mental health treatment. Mags’ main goals are to educate and to help change UK drug policy, so that therapies and medicines that are currently not accessible to patients might be made available on the NHS and prescribed to the people who desperately need them.
Suzy Gage
Project Twenty21 Patient liaison
Suzy Gage worked for 13 years at IBM UK Ltd, a multi-national IT company, holding positions in HR, sales, marketing and enablement. Following a complete career change in 2012 she became a family support worker for a small local charity, Home-Start Portsmouth. Suzy has met and worked with individuals from all walks of life.
As the patient liaison for Twenty21 Suzy will be engaging with patients, support groups and charities to encourage participation in the study. A measure of the success for the introduction of medical cannabis will be when people who haven’t previously used it start to do so, positive links with support groups and charities will play a key role in achieving this.
Prof. Michael Lynskey
Data analyst
Prof. Michael Lynskey is an epidemiologist and addiction researcher who has held academic appointments in New Zealand, where he’s from, Australia, the United States and the United Kingdom. His research largely focuses on the onset and escalation of drug use during adolescence and he has worked on multiple longitudinal studies examining the assessment of drug related problems and their associations with mental health. Given rapid changes occurring in the regulation of cannabis use and supply, he is increasingly interested in studying policy approaches to cannabis.
Honorary Research Team
As a charity, we are thankful to all of those who donate their time to support us to deliver non-partisan information about psychoactive substances. The Honorary Research Assistants listed below are a testament to a key objective of Drug Science – the delivery of free and accessible information to all.
Dr. Anna Ross
Honorary Research Assistant
Dr. Anna Ross is an Honorary Research Assistant at Drug Science, and a Senior Teaching Fellow in Health and Social Sciences at the University of Edinburgh. Anna completed her graduate studies in Law at the University of Edinburgh, followed by a Masters in Alcohol and Drugs Studies, and a PhD in Sociology and drug policy at the University of Edinburgh. Anna has worked for the Scottish Government on developing safeguarding protocol for charities, and the UK Government as the Special Advisor to the Scottish Affairs Committees Inquiry into Problem Drug Use in Scotland. In addition she has been on a range of advisory committees in Scotland, and set up the Scottish Drug Policy Conversations: a multi-stakeholder deliberative group exploring drug policy issues in Scotland.
Rayyan Zafar
Honorary Research Assistant
Rayyan Zafar is an Medical Research Council PhD student studying at Imperial College London in the centre for Neuropsychopharmacology under the supervision of Professor David Nutt. His PhD focuses on the application of multi-modal neuroimaging to understand addictions such as gambling and alcoholism. He has a keen interest in psychopharmacology and particularly how addictions could be treated with psychedelics. Additionally, Rayyan’s current research with Drug science focuses on medical cannabis to treat epilepsy, together with Dr Anne Schlag and Prof David Nutt.
Dr. Hannah Thurgur
Honorary Research Assistant
Dr Hannah Thurgur completed a PhD in Neuroscience at the University of Manchester, which investigated the role of inflammation and the extracellular matrix in repair after stroke. Hannah is currently an Executive Officer at the British Neuroscience Association, where she helps represent and promote neuroscience research and neuroscientists across the UK. During her PhD, she became involved with drug policy reform advocacy and developed a strong interest in medical psychedelics. Hannah is also passionate about harm reduction and improved drug education for young people.
Jacob Aday
Honorary Research Assistant
Jacob Aday is a graduate student in the Experimental Psychology program at Central Michigan University. He is in the final year of his Ph.D. and intends to join a laboratory studying classic psychedelic drugs for his postdoctoral training. Within psychedelic science, Jake is primarily interested in delineating the prosocial effects of psychedelics (e.g., increased connectedness, gratitude, nature relatedness, etc.) and studying how these prosocial effects may be beneficial for clinical populations. He also has experience working in cognitive neuroscience laboratories that examine interactions among emotion, attention, and embodiment—as well as the neural correlates of these processes. He is passionate about contributing to the scientific study of psychedelics and the implications findings from psychedelic research can have for drug policy.
Iram Salam
Honorary Research Assistant
Iram Salam is a psychology graduate with a keen interest in mental health, addiction and substance misuse in young people. She is interested in researching the therapeutic use of psychedelics and how psychedelics canbe used to treat addiction and mental health disorders. Iram has previously worked as a Research Assistant for the Christie NHS and currently works with The Conservative Drug Policy Reform Group and Students for Sensible Drug Policy.
Independent Advisors
We collaborate with independent advisors to help us to deliver the best source of evidence-based drug information which is free from commercial and political experiences.
Dr. Dani Gordon
Medical cannabis advisor
Dr Gordon is a double board-certified medical doctor and international leading expert in both CBD and clinical cannabis medicine, after treating thousands of patients in Canada in a referral complex chronic disease practice. Dr Gordon trained the UK’s first cannabis medicine specialist physicians and is a founding member and vice-chair of the UK Medical Cannabis Clinicians Society (MCCS).
Anna Rickman
Marketing Advisor
Anna has held executive positions in the public sector, social enterprise, impact-driven venture capital and startups. She cares deeply about increasing access to effective mental health interventions, pursuing this actively as the co-founder and COO of Wavepaths, a startup providing music both for and music as psychedelic therapy. Previously, she held the position of CMO of Drug Science and is honoured to continue to support the cause as an independent advisor. Her deep passion for her work derives from her own journeys through trauma-informed psychotherapy and psychedelic therapies. In her free time, she enjoys yoga and Muay Thai, and has spent many months fighter training in Thailand. She received her MA in Literae Humaniores from Oxford University.
Mark Mathias
Commercial Advisor
Mark joined Arbor Ventures in 2013, having been involved with managing investments and businesses for most of his working life. In 2003 Mark started his own fund management business in a joint venture with Dawnay Day. The business grew to be the leading commodities fund manager and won awards for Best Commodities Fund Manager and Best Structured Products Provider in the UK. It was an innovator and a market leader in its chosen product areas. It also turned profitable and cash positive in year two. Along the way, he has started up a home care business, and run a training business. He is currently on the board of a number of investment funds, mainly focused on Africa.
