Dr Caroline Copeland is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology & Toxicology at King’s College London, and the Director of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM; previously known as the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths [NPSAD]). Following her undergraduate and postgraduate studies at University College London and Imperial College, respectively, she completed a PhD with Prof Tom Salt and Prof Adam Sillito in the neuropharmacology and neurophysiology of thalamocortical circuits. Following her PhD she completed post-doctoral work with Prof Simon Schultz at Imperial College where she aided in the development of novel bioengineering systems to better understand neuronal physiology network dynamics. She then moved to St George’s, University of London, where she applied her neuropharmacology and mathematical modelling skills to the pharmacoepidemiology of drug-related deaths, later becoming the Director of the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths. She joined King’s in September 2019.

Dr Copeland heads a research group at King’s whose projects have the broad collective aim of improving healthcare strategies for people who use drugs. Current projects derived from the NPSUM range from the development of a wearable skin sensor to protect against opioid overdose, to the identification of drug-drug interactions between licensed medicines and illicit substances to prevent adverse effects. She has published over 30 research articles and successfully supervised 3 PhD students and over 40 MSc, MPharm and BSc student research projects.

Dr Copeland also sits on the Home Office’s Advisory Council for the Misuse of Drugs Novel Psychoactive Substances (ACMD NPS) Sub-Committee, and the Welsh National Implementation Board for Drug Poisoning Prevention (NIBDPP). In these roles Dr Copeland examines how national and international drug policy influences drug-related death trends.