Joanna Travis-Roberts

Joanna Travis-Roberts is the Chief Executive of ISSUP.

As ISSUP’s Chief Executive, Joanna ensures the effective running of the organisation, taking responsibility for staff, work outputs, stakeholder communications, board and funder reporting, good governance and adherence to statutory obligations.

Joanna has worked in the substance use disorders field since 2001 in a variety of capacities. Her educational background is around literature and languages, with a post graduate specialism in marketing. Her professional life has encompassed a wide range of responsibilities around research, communications, event management and leadership. 

After graduating from the University of Leeds, Joanna began working as part of a research project managed by Mentor Foundation and UNODC, gathering evidence based prevention in practice around the globe. This project developed into an online portal of prevention information, which Joanna was key to the development of, from inception through to launch. Building upon this experience Joanna has managed a number of information dissemination projects in the field of substance use prevention, including a frontrunner in online e-learning; Prevention-Smart Parents, a course aimed to support parents and carers in their prevention efforts. Prior to her work with ISSUP, Joanna managed the IKEA Foundation funded Prevention Hub.

Joanna also managed on the ground prevention implementation projects, spending three years on the Coastal and Ex-Mining Areas pilot project in collaboration with the Department of Health, evaluating the impact of a range of approaches within rural UK communities. During her career she also worked in event planning, working on the implementation of a series of Royal Fundraising Galas around the world.

From the International perspective, Joanna has consistently worked to engage an international audience in quality standards and evidence based practice. Her personal mission has always been to use her communication and marketing skills and experience to ensure organisations communicate effectively with their audience to make knowledge and resources as accessible and therefore effective as possible. In this way, she is working hard to make ISSUP both accessible and effective for its wide range of users and members.

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