Dr Caroline Copeland is a Senior Lecturer in Pharmacology and Toxicology at King’s College London and Director of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality (NPSUM), the UK’s national surveillance programme for drug-related deaths.

Her research focuses on understanding, preventing, and responding to drug-related harms through the integration of toxicology, epidemiology, and public health policy. She has particular expertise in drug-related mortality, novel psychoactive substances, synthetic opioids, pharmacoepidemiology, and emerging patterns of substance use. Through NPSUM, she leads national surveillance and research programmes that use mortality, toxicology, and healthcare data to identify emerging threats, evaluate interventions, and inform clinical practice and public policy.

Dr Copeland is a member of the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD) Novel Psychoactive Substances Committee and serves as an expert on novel psychoactive substances for the European Union Drugs Agency (EUDA). Her work has contributed to the understanding of harms associated with synthetic cannabinoids, novel benzodiazepines, nitazenes, ketamine, and other emerging substances, and has informed national and international policy discussions on drug-related harms and prevention strategies.

Her research programme spans several interconnected themes, including drug-related mortality surveillance, toxicology and predictive hazard assessment, medication safety, drug-drug interactions, and the evaluation of public health interventions. She is particularly interested in how large-scale mortality and toxicology datasets can be used to improve understanding of substance-related risks, identify emerging threats in near real-time, and translate evidence into meaningful public health action. She has published over 75 research articles and successfully supervised 4 PhD students and over 60 MSc, MPharm and BSc student research projects.

Prior to joining King’s College London in 2019, Dr Copeland worked at St George’s, University of London, where she held a number of research and leadership roles and contributed to the development of the National Programme on Substance Abuse Deaths (NPSAD), the predecessor to NPSUM. She previously undertook postdoctoral research at Imperial College London investigating neuronal network function and neuroengineering approaches to understanding brain activity.

Alongside her research activities, Dr Copeland leads teaching in clinical pharmacology and medicines safety and is committed to developing the next generation of researchers and healthcare professionals working across pharmacology, toxicology, public health, and medicines regulation.