Dr Kylie Lee

Priority Populations Research Stream at Centre for Alcohol Policy Research (La Trobe University)

Kylie Bio



Prof Lee’s work has attracted national and international recognition in the field of alcohol and other drug use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and other priority populations. She has a national profile for creating culturally appropriate methods to measure alcohol and other drug use among Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians and for supporting community-driven responses.

Prof Lee is CI on current NHMRC/MRFF funding of >$20.5 million (>$6m as CIA). Her research occurs in settings where practical challenges of conducting research can be considerable and where community engagement and thorough feedback of study findings are essential.

Capacity building is a key strength of Kylie's research program. She is known for her ability to nurture and mentor students, colleagues and collaborators in research. Kylie developed a successful model of remote and face-to-face support for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Australians coursework and research students. She supports her collaborators to learn these mentoring skills and most recently served as Deputy Director of the Centre of Research Excellence in Indigenous Health and Alcohol, where she led the support offered to research students, early career researcher and trainees.

Kylie has made clear impact on translation of her research into action. She is lead editor of an award-winning clinical textbook (Handbook for Aboriginal Alcohol and Drug Work, 2012), which has been downloaded more than 35,000 times. Her research in remote NT raised community and clinical interest in developing local health promotion responses to cannabis and other substance use. The resulting resources, developed by community with Kylie’s support, have won national and international acclaim, with two awards and two (top-three) finalist nominations since 2011. Kylie’s contributions were recently recognised with an “Award for Appreciation” at the 2021 National Indigenous Drug and Alcohol Awards, and a 2022 APSAD Mentor Award from the Australasian Professional Society on Alcohol and Drugs, and 2023 APSAD Mid-Career Researcher Award.

Kylie has been invited to share her translational research expertise with Inuit peoples in the Canadian Arctic, and in rural Sri Lanka. Her Sri Lankan work contributed to a NHMRC-funded randomised controlled trial that up-scaled successful initiatives to work with communities around alcohol.