Isabelle Volpe is a Research Fellow at the National Drug Research Institute. Her work explores how drug policy is implemented, lived, and made meaningful in everyday settings. She is currently working on an NHRMC-funded project exploring drug checking and unregulated drug markets.

Isabelle's research is primarily qualitative, using bespoke methods that foreground what is often overlooked or obscured in dominant accounts of drug policy and practices. Her approaches draw on Science and Technology Studies and critical social science. She engages in service and knowledge translation work to create impact. This includes presenting findings to government actors, contributing to practice guidance documents, and collaborating with harm reduction organisations.

Isabelle is a Visiting Fellow at the Drugs, Policy and Social Change (DPSC) group at Manchester Metropolitan University (UK), Adjunct Lecturer at the Social Policy Research Centre at UNSW Sydney (AU), and Honorary Fellow at the Burnet Institute (AU).