James C. Fell, PRESIDENT (USA)

National Opinion Research Center (NORC) at the University of Chicago

Jan Ramaekers, Past President (Netherlands) 

Maastricht University

Prof Jan Ramaekers work focuses on psychopharmacology and behavioral toxicology of medicinal drugs and drugs of abuse. His experimental research combines methods from psychopharmacology, forensic toxicology and cognitive neuroscience to determine drug induced changes in human performance and driving.

He supervised a range of placebo controlled studies that have been conducted to assess drug induced driving impairment as determined in on-the-road driving tests. The work provides a strong scientific rationale for international harm classification systems of medicinal drug effects on driver safety and per se legislation for driving under the influence of drugs.

Flavio Pechansky, President Elect (Brazil)

University of Rio Grande do Sul

Flavio Pechansky is Full Professor of Psychiatry, Founder and Director of the Center for Drug and Alcohol Research affiliated with the Federal University of Rio Grande do Sul (UFRGS) in Brazil, and of the Collaborating Center on Alcohol and Drugs of the Hospital de Clinicas of Porto Alegre (HCPA), a large teaching hospital associated with that same university. Dr. Pechansky earned his specialty in Psychiatry, his Master’s and Doctoral degrees in Medicine with honors at UFRGS and was trained as a NIDA-funded Hubert H. Humphrey fellow at the Johns Hopkins School of Public Health, in the Department of Mental Hygiene. He founded and chaired the Addiction Psychiatry Services at HCPA for 8 years and currently is the Chair of the Professional Master’s Program in Mental Health and Addictive Disorders at HCPA.

He has worked as an addiction psychiatrist for 34 years, and has trained hundreds of undergraduate, specialty and postgraduate students of medicine, psychology, odontology, biomedicine, and psychiatry. Dr. Pechansky is with the Department of Psychiatry at UFRGS since 1995, was an Associate Visiting Scientist at the University of Kentucky, University of Delaware, and Adjunct Assistant Professor at the University of Pennsylvania. He was also a member of the Impairment in Transportation Committee of the Transportation Research Board, and Member-at-Large of the Board of the International Council on Alcohol, Drugs and Traffic Safety - ICADTS. He has an extensive career in training, consultancy and writing in the field, with more than 200 publications including books, book chapters, editorials, and original papers in Brazilian and international scientific journals in the areas of epidemiology and treatment of alcoholism and drug abuse, adolescent drug and alcohol experimentation, risk behaviors for the transmission of HIV among drug users, and drunk/drugged driving. He has served and is currently a consultant for the Brazilian government and has been a chair/member of more than ten scientific committees of Brazilian and international institutions, as well as editor and member of editorial boards of Brazilian and international scientific journals – among them the Brazilian Journal of Psychiatry and Addiction – of which he was assistant regional editor for 10 years.

Hallvard Gjerde, Treasurer (Norway)

Oslo University Hospital

Dr. Gjerde is senior researcher at the Department of Forensic Sciences of Oslo University Hospital (Oslo, Norway). His research has focused on the impact of alcohol and drug use on traffic safety, and the use of oral fluid testing in forensic toxicology and in population studies of alcohol and drug use.

Evelyn Vingilis, Secretary (Canada)

University of Western Ontario

Dr Evelyn Vingilis is Director of the Population and Community Health Unit and Professor with the Departments of Family Medicine, and Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the Schulich School of Medicine & Dentistry, The University of Western Ontario in Canada. Previously as Senior Scientist at the Addiction Research Foundation, she directed the Drinking Driving Research Program. She has published on alcohol, drugs and traffic safety. Her recent work has examined the effects of alcohol and medications on subsequent motor vehicle injuries among a representative sample of Canadians, ADHD and driving, and street racing and stunt driving.

In the 1980s she was a board member of ICADTS and most recently on the Canadian Association of Road Safety Professionals. She has been a member, advisor or consultant for many government departments and agencies, such as the Roadside Survey Planning Committee of Ontario; Premier of Ontario’s Task Force on Drinking Driving; New York State Task Force on Drinking and Driving; Committee on Alcohol, Other Drugs and Transportation, TRB.

Amie Hayley, Assistant Treasurer (Australia)

Swinburne University

Dr Mark King is an Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Centre for Accident Research & Road Safety – Queensland (CARRS-Q) at the Queensland University of Technology. He joined CARRS-Q in 2004, and had been active in road safety research, management, strategy and policy for many years before then. The first part of his career was spent working in government road safety roles, including policy and evaluation work on drink driving topics including: the doubling of random breath testing in South Australia and its evaluation via roadside breath alcohol surveys; laboratory and field testing of the Drunk Driving Warning System; and development of requirements for an Alcohol Ignition Interlock program. During this time Mark was a member of the Austroads Drug Driving Working Group and contributed to its recommendations regarding drug driving legislation and enforcement; he was also a member of the Under the Limit Steering Committee chaired by Prof Mary Sheehan (former ICADTS President) and facilitated State Government support of the Under the Limit Program as a sentencing option for convicted drink drivers. This has ultimately led to a program that has now been mandated by the Queensland Government for convicted drink drivers.

Mark’s main current interests are the advancement of road safety in low and middle income countries through capacity building informed by research and best practice, and the safety of vulnerable road users.  He supervises PhD and Masters students conducting research across a broad range of road safety topics, including drink driving practices and enforcement, and driving with prescribed opiates.

Mark is also the National Treasurer of the Australasian College of Road Safety, a member of its Executive Committee and Management Sub-Committee, and Chair of the Queensland Chapter of the College. He is an Associate Editor of Accident Analysis and Prevention and serves on the scientific Committees of several major conferences.