Ms Ada Beselia

Photo of Ada Beselia

Ada has an interrelated educational background spanning psychology (BA), addiction studies (MA), and epidemiology (MSc). She has experience across both research and community settings, having worked at an addiction research centre as well as within a community-based harm reduction organisation, providing harm reduction and drug checking services in nightlife and festival settings for young people who use drugs. She has co-authored several peer-reviewed publications, research reports, and annual drug situation reports for Georgia. Currently, she volunteers as a service navigator with The Loop Australia for on-site drug checking services at festivals across Victoria and also works casually as a data officer with the organisation.

She joined NDRI in 2026 to undertake her PhD project on drug checking and harm reduction strategies in Electronic Dance Music (EDM) settings, conducted across Victoria (Australia), Portugal, and Slovenia. Using a multi-sited ethnographic approach, her research aims to better understand the experiences of using and delivering drug checking services across different drug policy contexts and EDM environments.

  • Dip Vocational Diploma in Criminalistics, Georgian Technical University
  • BA Psychology, Tbilisi State University
  • MA Addiction Studies, Ilia State University
  • MSc Epidemiology, Maastricht University
  • Expertise and Research Interests:
  • • Harm reduction
  • • Drug checking
  • • Drug use in nightlife settings
  • • Chemsex
  • • Impacts of drug laws and drug policies
  • • Young People
  • • Epidemiology

No publications available

No non-NDRI publications available