Dr Nicola Kalk

Dr Nicola Kalk is an Adjunct Senior Lecturer in the Department of Addictions at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology & Neuroscience (IoPPN), King’s College London, and a Consultant Addiction Psychiatrist with the King’s College Hospital Addictions Care Team for South London and Maudsley NHS Foundation Trust.

She has over 10 years’ experience in addictions research and continues to lead and contribute to a number of national studies. Nicola is co‑investigator on the D‑SITAR study (evaluating the implementation of the ten‑year drug strategy) and the ProACTIVE study (evaluating Alcohol Care Teams), and co‑principal investigator on the BUILD2depot study. She is also part of the National Programme on Substance Use Mortality, collating reports from coroners across England, Wales, and Northern Ireland on psychoactive drug‑related deaths.

Nicola studied Medicine (MBChB) at the University of Cape Town before receiving the Rhodes Scholarship to complete an MSc in Social Policy and an MSc in Neuroscience at the University of Oxford. She later earned her PhD in Addiction Psychiatry at Imperial College London, funded by a Wellcome Trust GSK Translational Training Fellowship.

She is a member of expert groups drafting the UK alcohol treatment guidelines and reviewing the harms of synthetic cannabinoids for the Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs (ACMD). Nicola also serves on the executive committee of the Faculty of Addiction Psychiatrists. Alongside her clinical and research roles, she lectures on addiction for King’s College London Medical School and supervises BSc, MSc, and PhD students. She is also a trustee of the Gordon Moody Association, a Tier 4 service for problem gambling.