Dr. Monica Barratt
VC Senior Research Fellowship
Details
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College: School of GUSS
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Department: School of GUSS
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Campus: City Campus Australia
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monica.barratt@rmit.edu.au
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ORCID: 0000-0002-1015-9379
Open to
- Masters Research or PhD student supervision
About
Monica Barratt is a Vice Chancellor’s Senior Research Fellow at the Social Equity Research Centre at RMIT University, Melbourne. She is also affiliated with RMIT's Digital Ethnography Research Centre, and holds an adjunct appointment at the National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre at UNSW. She has built an internationally recognised research profile over her 20 year career, focusing on understanding emerging drug use trends, especially related to the use of new and emerging psychoactive substances, drug checking or testing drugs for harm reduction, cannabis cultivation and digitally facilitated drug markets.
Monica is the Australian lead for the Global Drug Survey, the world's largest survey of people who use drugs. She has developed specific expertise in engaging with hidden populations using digital technologies. She also serves as the Executive Director of Bluelight.org, a global drug harm reduction community, and leads research activities for The Loop Australia, a charity setting up to conduct drug checking interventions both at festivals and in the community. Monica has a long-held commitment to ensuring that her research has an impact outside academia. To that end she has provided critical evidence to various Australian coroners about further ways in which we can prevent drug-related deaths.
Monica is the Australian lead for the Global Drug Survey, the world's largest survey of people who use drugs. She has developed specific expertise in engaging with hidden populations using digital technologies. She also serves as the Executive Director of Bluelight.org, a global drug harm reduction community, and leads research activities for The Loop Australia, a charity setting up to conduct drug checking interventions both at festivals and in the community. Monica has a long-held commitment to ensuring that her research has an impact outside academia. To that end she has provided critical evidence to various Australian coroners about further ways in which we can prevent drug-related deaths.
Academic positions
- VC Senior Research Fellow
- RMIT University
- Social Equity Research Centre
- Melbourne, Australia
- 3 Jun 2019 – Present
- NHMRC ECR Fellow
- UNSW Sydney
- National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre
- Sydney, Australia
- 30 Jun 2014 – 31 May 2019
- Research Fellow
- Curtin University
- National Drug Research Institute
- Perth, Australia
- 3 Jan 2011 – 27 Jun 2014
Supervisor projects
- Everybody’s Everything: Microdosing, Policy, and The Ethical Self
- 9 Sep 2021
- Is that a Threat?: An exploration into the phenomena of 'sextortion'
- 29 Jul 2021
Teaching interests
Monica has supervised 7 PhD students to completion (with an additional student now awaiting examination), as well as 2 Honours and 1 Masters student. She currently jointly supervised 2 PhD students and 1 Masters student. At RMIT, Monica tutors for the Masters unit Research Strategies and often provides guest lectures, including for the unit Global Crime.
Research interests
Understanding emerging drug use trends, especially related to the use of new and emerging psychoactive substances, drug checking or testing drugs for harm reduction, cannabis cultivation and digitally facilitated drug markets. Ethics and methods for conducting research on sensitive topics and with stigmatised or hidden populations. Humane drug policy, that acknowledges that seeking to alter one's conscious state is not inherently problematic.
