Vana Sypsa is Professor of Epidemiology and Medical Statistics in the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens in Greece. Her research interests include the epidemiology of hepatitis C, HIV and other infectious diseases. She is principal investigator in community-based programs for PWID in Greece.

Marios Atzemis was born in Athens on the 6th December 1974. He graduated from Athens College in 1992 and from the American College of Greece in 2003 with a bachelor in Sociology. He was a user of psychoactive substances for many years. Marios was one of the many people who were recorded in the collective consciousness as a case of the HIV outbreak among injecting drug users in the centre of Athens between 2011-2013From the summer of 2014 up to the summer of 2024 ,Marios worked at the Greek Association of PLHIV ‘’;POSITIVE VOICE’’ as a harm reduction officer. Since 2016, he has been a regular member of the European AIDS Treatment Group and represented it from 2019 until 2024 in the Civil Society Forum on Drugs( official consultative body of the EU and the Commission regarding drug policies and Civil Society) He represented the national Greek delegation for numerous times in the UN convention regarding drugs (United Nations Office of Drugs and Crime - Committee on Narcotic Drugs)He is also a board member of the Drug Policy Network of South East Europe (DPNSEE)And an an advisory committee member of Correlation European Harm Reduction Network Currently he is the deputy chair of Addiction Prevention Centers ATHENA HYGEIA and an advisor to the Mayor for drug policies and bloodborne infections

Professor Alison Ritter AO is a drug policy scholar and Director of the Drug Policy Modelling Program at UNSW, Sydney. She conducts research on drug laws, drug treatment, models and methods of democratic participation in drug policy; and research focussed on policy process. Her work is supported by grants from competitive research funding bodies (NHMRC, ARC) as well as commissioned research from governments across Australia and internationally. She is past President of the International Society for the Study of Drug Policy, and Editor in Chief for the International Journal of Drug Policy. Professor Ritter has an extensive research grant track record (more than $30million AUD) and has published widely in the field, with more than 200 journal articles and her 2022 book “Drug Policy”.

Dr. Thomas Kerr, PhD, is a Professor in and the Head of the Division of Social Medicine in the Department of Medicine at the University of British Columbia and is the Director of Research at the BC Centre on Substance Use (BCCSU). Dr. Kerr brings over 15 years of clinical experience working with a range of populations, including people who use substances and people living with HIV. His primary research interests involve substance use, harm reduction and health policy and service evaluation. His long history of involvement in healthcare issues in Vancouver’s Downtown Eastside includes ground-breaking work on peer-driven interventions, needle exchanges, safe supply and supervised consumption sites. Dr. Kerr has also worked in a number of settings internationally, including in Thailand, Argentina, Australia, France, the US, Russia, Eastern Europe and the former Soviet Union.