On Wednesday, 25 th March 2026, Elizabeth (‘Betsy’) Ettore and I sat down on Teams to discuss her research.     JB: Lovely seeing you, Betsy. Let’s start. You were born in Connecticut and educated at Fordham University in New York and then at the LSE in London, where you did your PhD. After posts in London (including the Institute of Psychiatry and my college Birkbeck, University of London in the 1980s), Finland, and Plymouth, you settled at the University of Liverpool wher

On 28 January 2026, I sat down with Professor Robin Room over a Teams call to discuss his influential research on alcohol, which began in the early 1960s and continues today. He was speaking to me from his crowded, book-lined study in Melbourne. Despite decades in the U.S., his strong Australian accent, intellectual generosity, and warmth made talking with him a pleasure. His enthusiasm for the all-too-human propensity to enjoy alcohol, illegal drugs, and gambling was palpabl