Larissa J. Maier

Dr. Maier is passionate about drug policy, social justice, and human rights. She is committed to increasing access to harm reduction services for people who use drugs and ending the systemic oppression of Black people and other minority groups in the U.S. and beyond. Dr. Maier is a postdoctoral scholar at the Department of Clinical Pharmacy at the University of California, San Francisco (UCSF) investigating the implementation of local cannabis and opioid policies. She earned her BSc, MSc, and PhD from the University of Zurich. She worked at the Swiss Research Institute for Public Health and Addiction (ISGF) and at the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) in Vienna. Dr. Maier recently received two highly competitive fellowships for her research stay in San Francisco (SNSF & NIDA INVEST).

Dr. Maier is a member of the Core Research Team of Global Drug Survey (GDS) aiming to make drug use safer, regardless of the legal status of the drug. In addition, she leads the Science Policy Group (SPG) and the Psychedelic and Entheogen Academic Council (PEAC) at UCSF and is a member of the U.S. National Science Policy Network (NSPN). Furthermore, she serves on several committees to facilitate international relations, diversity, communication, and early career networking at the College on Problems of Drug Dependence (CPDD), the European Society of Prevention Research (EUSPR), the International AIDS Society (IAS), the International Society of Substance Use Professionals (ISSUP), the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy (ISSDP), the Society for Prevention Research (SPR), the Society of Addiction Psychology (APA Division 50), and the United Nations Associations of the USA SF Chapter (UNA-SF).