Aileen O'Gorman (BA MSc PhD) is Professor of Substance Use and Social Policy and Director of the UWS Centre for Social, Health and Environmental Inequalities Research (SHEIR).

Her primary research focus is on the social, structural and systemic determinants of health inequalities. She has a special interest in the framing and problematisation of social issues such as poverty and drug use; the unequal distribution of drug-related harms and deaths in marginalised communities; and the role of policy in the production and reproduction of harms and inequalities.

Professor O’Gorman is an active participant in policy advocacy and research networks nationally and internationally. She leads a European Network on the Social and Structural Determinants of Drug-related Deaths and is a member of the European Union Drug Agency’s (EUDA) working group on the social determinants of drug use. She is an elected Trustee of the International Society for the Study of Drugs Policy (ISSDP) and of UWS Senate, and an appointed member of the Board of the Scottish Drugs Forum and the international editorial board of the Drugs: Education, Prevention and Policy journal. 

Previously, she led the UWS Athena SWAN initiative, was an elected Board member of the European Society for the Study of Drugs Research (ESSD), and was Chairperson of a low-threshold third sector drugs service - the Rialto Community Drugs Team, Dublin – for many years.

Prior to joining UWS, Aileen was a Lecturer and Co-ordinator of the Drugs Education and Research Partnership Initiative at University College Dublin (UCD); senior researcher at the National Advisory Committee on Drugs, Ireland; community researcher on the Fatima Mansions housing regeneration project (Dublin); and held research posts at the Health Research Board, Ireland; the Centre for Urban and Community Research, Goldsmiths, University of London; and the Drug Indicators Project, Birkbeck, University of London.

Professor O’Gorman has a successful history of securing national and international funding for research and knowledge exchange; designing and project managing research studies; establishing and leading research teams; and disseminating research findings to impact on policy and practice.

Recent externally funded research include: Polydrug and polymethod use: The use of foil for drug administration (Chief Scientist Office); Preventing drug-related deaths: the role of Primary Care (Scottish Government’s Drug Death Task Force); and a Social Autopsy of drug-related deaths among young people in Scotland (Corra Foundation).

Aileen's signature research is participative, engages with the communities affected, and seeks to impact on drug and social policy and practice, and the the UN Sustainable Development Goals. She works closely with experts by experience (people who are marginalised and stigmatised by their poverty and/or drug use); civil society and community development organisations; policy makers and advisors; and service providers and practitioners to ensure her research is relevant, equitable and accessible.

Professor O’Gorman’s leadership and teaching on the UWS Contemporary Drug and Alcohol Studies programme is informed by her work in the community/voluntary third sector and in government and media, by her international collaborations, and her active research studies. She is module co-ordinator for postgraduate modules on Understanding Substance Use, the Politics of Drug and Alcohol Policy, Drugs and Culture, and the MSc CDAS Dissertation and she contributes to postgraduate teaching across the School of Education and Social Sciences.

• European Union Drugs Agency
• International Society for the Study of Drugs Policy
• Drug Policy Unit, Scottish Government
• Alcohol and Drug Partnerships, Scotland and RUK
• Health and Social Care Partnerships, Scotland and RUK
• Scottish Drugs Forum
• Drugs Research Network Scotland