Jade Lane
Senior Research Officer
Background
Jade is a qualitative researcher whose work spans violence prevention, drug use, and incarceration. She approaches research as a political practice – one that can either reinforce existing harms or work against them.
Jade's research draws on a range of qualitative and participatory methods, including feminist and co-design approaches, autoethnography, and creative and multimodal methods that explore how knowledge can be produced and communicated in forms beyond academic writing, to produce evidence that is rigorous, led by the communities it concerns, and returned to the people and places it comes from. Her practice is informed by her own lived experience of violence, criminalisation and substance dependence. She is the inaugural recipient of the Alfred Research Alliance 2025 Scientific Abstract Competition in Consumer Involvement in Research, reflecting her commitment to research that is genuinely accountable to the people it is about.
Jade is Principal Investigator on 'We Keep Us Safe,' Burnet's first ANROWS-funded project, co-designing community-led responses to domestic, family, and sexual violence among people with histories of drug use and criminalisation. She is Associate Investigator on SUSTain, a five-year mixed-methods study on transitional care for women with substance dependence leaving prison. She also co-coordinates The Forest, Burnet's lived experience co-design program working to end cycles of reincarceration. She works in Australian and international contexts.
Qualifications
- Master of Disaster, Design and Development, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology, Australia
- Bachelor of Arts Double Degree, International Aid and Development, and Politics and International Studies
Positions
- 2026–present: Senior Research Officer, Burnet Institute
- 2024–2026: Research and Technical Advisor, Burnet Institute
- 2023–2024: Implementation and Engagement Planning Coordinator, The Forest, Burnet Institute
- 2021–2023: Lived Experience Practice Lead, Fitzroy Legal Service
- 2019–2021: Regional Violence Prevention Coordinator, Women’s Health Goulburn North East
- 2018–2019: Technical Advisor – Gender, Marie Stopes International
Reports and other work
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The Forest proposal
Explains how we developed The Forest - a model to address underlying causes of incarceration.
The Forest proposal -
The Forest co-design report (Burnet Institute and Paper Giant)
Describes the process and evidence behind The Forest - a model to address underlying causes of incarceration.
The Forest co-design report (Burnet Institute and Paper Giant) -
Economic and health cost benefit impacts of The Forest (Insight Economics)
Describes the economic and social benefits of The Forest - a model to address underlying causes of incarceration.
Economic and health cost benefit impacts of The Forest (Insight Economics)
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Responding to risks of injecting drug use initiation in Kachin Myanmar: a formative assessment
October 2024. This report describes outcomes from the project's qualitative and co-design components.
Responding to risks of injecting drug use initiation in Kachin Myanmar: a formative assessment
Current projects
View 1 moreSubstance use support for women moving in and out of prison (SUSTain)
We’re delivering alcohol and other drugs transitional care for women leaving prison – codesigned with those who know it best.
The Torch co-design and evaluation collaboration
We’re working closely with staff and artists at The Torch, a not-for-profit First Nations-led arts organisation, to improve program engagement and effectiveness.
The Forest
The Forest is a public health model that addresses underlying causes of incarceration. It's led by people who use drugs, for people who use drugs.