Our lab is growing! In our Three Questions series, we’re profiling each of our members and the amazing work they’re doing. This week’s post features Lisa Matthias, a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of North American Studies at Freie Universität Berlin. After joining the lab in Spring 2019 to lead a project on opioid science in the news, Lisa stayed on to become the ScholCommLab’s official “perennial” visiting scholar.

As governments across the world grapple with the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic, several other urgent crises have taken a back seat.  Among them is the opioid epidemic. Here in Vancouver, BC, where almost half of our team is based, the effects of this second, fatal crisis are visible every day. Just this May, our province reported a record-breaking number of overdose-related deaths: 170 in a single month, or about 5.5 a day.