Adrian is a Senior Research Fellow and Head of the Drugs, Gender and Sexuality Program at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health and Society, La Trobe University. A sociologist of education and health, Adrian’s research focuses on health-related initiatives including alcohol and other drug education for young people, opioid overdose and take-home naloxone, and experiences of hepatitis C, including treatment and cure.

Alongside academic publishing, Adrian regularly translates novel research insights into accessible public resources, including Overdoselifesavers.org (2019) and VitalvoicesonhepC.org (2022), as well as workforce stigma-reduction resources (2022) and drug education development tools (2025).

Funded research

• Farrugia. Reconceptualising harm reduction for young people: Building more effective responses to youth drug use. Australian Research Council Future Fellowship (2027-2031): $1,166,977
• Bourne, Farrugia, Grant, McNair. Exploring how LGBTQ communities experience, conceptualise and respond to drug-related harm. Victorian Alcohol and Other Drug Association Alcohol Innovation Agenda (2023-2024): $260,764.
• Farrugia, Seear, Ellard, Lenton. A BBV and STI stigma reduction toolkit for the Victorian health sector: An implementation project. Victorian Department of Health (2023): $121,479.
• Fraser, Farrugia, Fomiatti, Ellard. Reducing stigma and discrimination associated with hepatitis C: Developing a stigma reduction toolkit for the Victorian healthcare workforce. Victorian Department of Health (2021-2022): $150,447.
• Farrugia. Addressing gender and sexuality in drug education, Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship (2022-2025): $432,029
• Seear, Fraser, valentine, Farrugia, Edwards, Jeffcote. Addressing hepatitis C-related legal, policy and practice discrimination in a post-cure world, Australian Research Council Discovery Project (2020–2022): $560,286.
• Fraser, Farrugia, Moore, Edwards. South West Sydney Drug Health Services grant. Assertive youth outreach in SWSLHD: Program and participant aims, priorities and outcomes, (2018–19): $50,000
• Fraser, Farrugia, Edwards and Hocking. South West Sydney Drug Health Services grant. Lived experiences of stigma and discrimination among SWSLHD drug health service users: a qualitative study, (2018): $50,000

Supervision

Adrian welcomes supervision opportunities in the sociology of alcohol and other drug consumption, youth drug consumption, drug education and health promotion, gender and sociological approaches to health and illness more broadly. His theoretical interests include post-structural and post-human approaches to subjectivity, materiality and the body.