Dr Nadine Harker Burnhams is employed as a Specialist Scientist in the Alcohol, Tobaccoand other Drug Research Unit of the South African Medical Research Council. She completed her PhD at the University of Cape Town and currently holds the position of honorary research associate at the UCT School of Public Health and Family Medicine.
She has authored and co-authored peer-reviewed journal articles, technical research reports, and policy documents on the topic of substance abuse prevention, and presented at conferences locally and internationally. She has co-authored a book titled Alcohol, Drugs and Employment.
She has advised local, provincial and national government on issues related to alcohol and drug abuse prevention and policy and has acted as a technical advisor and consultant to the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) on the drafting of guidelines for substance abuse prevention initiatives in the workplace as well as the UNODC International Prevention Standards for Drug Use.
She has taught various undergraduate and postgraduate courses at the University of Cape Town and Stellenbosch. Dr Harker is currently the national head of the South African Community Epidemiology Network on Drug Use (SACENDU), a project that aims to provide community-level public health surveillance of alcohol, tobacco and other drug (ATOD) use trends andassociated consequences. Her specific interests are in improving the quality of substance abuse prevention services, monitoring and evaluating the performance and outcomes of such services, and designing and implementing substance abuse prevention services for the work sector.