David McDonald

David McDonald is an interdisciplinary social scientist based in the Canberra, ACT, region. His academic qualifications are BA, DipSocWk, MA, GradDipPoplnHealth. His research interests lie in domains where population health and criminal justice intersect, particularly alcohol, tobacco and other drugs policy, Indigenous health and justice, and research integration and building evidence-based public policy.

David is the Director of the consultancy Social Research & Evaluation Pty Ltd, and a Campus Visitor at the National Centre for Epidemiology and Population Health at The Australian National University.

He has wide experience in research & evaluation, policy analysis, and policy & program development in the alcohol and other drugs, criminal justice and related fields. He is a member of the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and other Drugs, International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, the Australasian Evaluation Society (Charter Member), the American Evaluation Association, the ANZ Society of Criminology, and the Public Health Association of Australia (MPHA). He is also a regular presenter at national and international conferences and is published widely in Australian and international journals.

Earlier positions he has held include Senior Criminologist at the Australian Institute of Criminology, Deputy Head of Research at the Australian Royal Commission into Aboriginal Deaths in Custody, Director of the National Drug Abuse Information Centre, Director of the Northern Territory Drug and Alcohol Bureau, and Senior Training Officer at the Administrative College of Papua New Guinea.