Kate Seear
ASSOCIATE PROFESSOR IN LAW
La Trobe University, Australia
alcohol and other drug use, performance and image enhancing drugs, doping, drug law and policy, stigma and discrimination
Dr Kate Seear is a Associate Professor in Law at La Trobe University, Australia. She holds an Australian Research Council Discovery Early Career Researcher Award (DECRA) Fellowship (2016-2018). Kate is a practising lawyer, the Academic Director of Springvale Monash Legal Service, and an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Social Studies of Addiction Concepts research program in the National Drug Research Institute, Curtin University, Australia. She has written extensively on the intersections between alcohol and other drug use, drug law and policy, stigma and discrimination. She is the author, among other things, of the world’s first full-length social science book on hepatitis C and injecting drug use (together with Professor Suzanne Fraser), called Making disease, making citizens: The politics of hepatitis C (published by Ashgate). Much of Kate’s work is empirical, qualitative and interdisciplinary in nature, and draws upon a range of perspectives and disciplines including science and technology studies, feminist theory, new materialisms, legal ethics and human rights. Together with Professor Suzanne Fraser, Professor David Moore, Dr Campbell Aitken and Ms Kay Stanton, she is presently undertaking research into the rise of performance and image enhancing drug injecting in Australia. This project funded by the Australian Research Council (DP170100302) explores opportunities for improving harm reduction. Kate holds honours degrees in sociology and law, and a PhD, all from Monash University.