Executive Board

Serap Annette Akgür, received her medical degree from Ankara University School of Medicine and she completed her residency on medical pharmacology and make PhD on forensic toxicology. She has been working in the field of drug addiction, drug testing and forensic toxicology at Ege University for more than 25 years. As a founder of the Institute on Drug Abuse, Toxicology and Pharmaceutical Sciences, she is Professor at the Institute on Addiction Toxicology Department. As a director of the toxicology laboratory, she works routinely on drug testing for drug abuse in probation system, clinical services and workplaces. Beside working in an academic platform, she also advises many organizations on the development of workplace drug testing policies. She cooperated with the Ministry of Justice, the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Ministry of Health within the scope of forensic toxicology, and she serves in scientific committees in the relevant institutions of these ministries. She is founder of and president of Society of Forensic and Clinical Toxicology in Türkiye. A board member of Turkish Pharmacology Society, Clinical Toxicology Group. She is an active and contributing member for TIAFT since 1998 and former member of the Young Scientists Committee. She regularly organized Regional TIAFT Türkiye meetings since 2014 and is the host of the 64th TIAFT Annual Meeting to be held in Türkiye in 2027. Dr. Akgür is, European Workplace Drug Test Society -EWDTS, International Association of Medical Review Officers -IAMRO board member, The International Forum of Drug and Alcohol Testing –IFDAT/SAPAA legal committee member. She works actively in these national and international scientific organizations, especially on forensic toxicology applications and regulations for the prevention of drug abuse.

María obtained her BSc and MSc degrees in Chemistry at Univ. Complutense de Madrid, School of Chemistry in 1983, and a Diploma in Toxicology by the Univ. Complutense de Madrid (School of Medicine, Dept. of Toxicology and Health Legislation) in 1991. She received a PhD in Analytical Forensic Toxicology (Cum Laude) by the Univ. Complutense de Madrid, School of Chemistry, in 2000. Her doctoral thesis dealt with analytical techniques for determination of antidepressants in blood, and was performed at the Instituto Nacional de Toxicología y Ciencias Forenses (INTCF). In 1987, María joined the INTCF an advisory organization of the Spanish Ministry of Justice. As Forensic Toxicologist, she has provided over 60,000 toxicological forensic reports on postmortem and human performance toxicology cases for Courts of Law. She has been involved in DUID, DFSA, abuse drugs hair analysis, postmortem cases concerning drugs and chemicals, as well as other judicial cases. She has regularly served as expert witness in Forensic Toxicology for the Spanish Courts of Law. Her research appointment was at the Forensic Toxicology Lab., College of Medicine, Univ. of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA, in 2002, under the supervision of Prof. Dr. Bruce Goldberger, Ph.D. Her research activity was focused in the development and validation of analytical techniques for detection and quantitation of xenobiotics in biological specimens with hyphenated chromatographic and mass spectrometric techniques. María mentored a pharmacist on her doctoral thesis and many other scholarship students. In 2019 she was awarded the “Cruz de San Raimundo de Peñafort” from the Spanish Justice Ministry. First author of 29 papers in international peer-reviewed journals, and over 40 abstracts presented at international and national meetings dealing with case studies and specific topics in the field. Chair of workshops in USA and Spain. Full member of TIAFT (2001), SOFT (2003), SoHT (2015), EUROTOX (2003), and AET (1989). Reviewer for J. Anal. Toxicol., Forensic Sci. International, J. Chromatogr. B, and Clin. Toxicol. Member of the editorial board of the Egypt. J. Forensic Sci. National Institute of Toxicology and Forensic Sciences. Ministry of the Presidency, Justice and Relations with the Courts.

Jose Luiz da Costa, PhD, is an Associate Professor of Toxicology and Analytical Toxicology at the University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and Head of the Campinas Poison Control Centre, Campinas-SP, Brazil. He worked as a Forensic Toxicologist at the São Paulo State Police for 14 years (2002–2016) and served as President of the Brazilian Society of Toxicology (2012–2013). He holds a Master’s in Toxicology and Analytical Toxicology (2004), a PhD in Analytical Chemistry (2008), and completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA-NIH, 2014, under the supervision of Dr. Marilyn Huestis). His research focuses on NPS investigations in Brazil and the development of analytical methods using microextraction techniques as greener strategies for forensic toxicology. Dr Costa has published over 105 papers and 12 book chapters. Jose Luiz has been a TIAFT member since 2007, and since then, he has attended 12 TIAFT meetings and several TIAFT Latin American Regional Meetings (the first in 2006). He co-hosted the TIAFT Latin American Regional Meeting in Águas de Lindóia, Brazil (2019), and will host the TIAFT meeting in 2028 in Foz do Iguaçu, Brazil. He has been the TIAFT Regional Representative for Brazil since 2018. In 2021, Jose Luiz da Costa became the first Latin American to receive the TIAFT Achievement Award.

Sara Abdennour, PhD, is a Senior Lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine at Setif University and heads the Laboratory of Toxicology at the University Hospital of Setif, Algeria. She specializes in clinical and forensic toxicology and collaborates with several hospitals in Eastern Algeria. She is also an expert for the Algerian Health Research Agency. Dr. Abdennour earned her Doctorate in Pharmacy in 2007, followed by a specialized degree in Toxicology in 2010. In 2020, she completed a Doctorate in Medical Sciences with a thesis on the toxicological study of plants containing toxic heterosides. Additionally, she holds a Diploma of Specialized Studies from the European Drug Winter School 2022, focusing on cannabis practice, policies, and debates in the EU and beyond (EMCDDA, Lisbon), as well as a Diploma of Advanced Studies Inter-University in Forensic Biology from Aix-Marseille University, France (2015). She has been a member of TIAFT since 2014. She is also member of other scientific organizations and societies, including the Algerian Society of Toxicology (Satox), the French Society of Analytical Toxicology (SFTA) and the British Toxicology Society (BTS).

Marta Concheiro is Associate Professor of Toxicology at John Jay College of Criminal Justice, CUNY. She received her Pharm.D. in 2002 and her Ph.D. in Toxicology in 2006, both from the University of Santiago de Compostela, Spain. During her Ph.D., she performed research projects at other European institutions, specifically at the Institute de Médicine Légale et de Médicine Social in Strasbourg (France) and at the Instituto Nacional de Medicina Legal in Lisbon (Portugal). She did her postdoctoral training (2008-2009) at the Chemistry and Drug Metabolism Section at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), in Baltimore, MD, where she worked as Research Scientist until 2014. Dr. Concheiro has received several awards, including the 2020 Faculty Scholarly Excellence Award from the Office for the Advancement of Research-CUNY, and the 2018 Achievement Award from The International Association of Forensic Toxicologists (TIAFT). Dr. Concheiro is Associate Editor of the Journal of Forensic Sciences and the Director of the Masters in Forensic Sciences Program at John Jay College. Dr. Concheiro has more than 95 publications in peer-reviewed journals, and she has participated presenting her work at more than 50 professional toxicology meetings.

Associate Professor Jennifer Schumann is Head of the Drug Intelligence Unit at the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine and Monash University’s Department of Forensic Medicine. She is a forensic pharmacologist and toxicologist, with over two decades of experience interpreting the involvement of alcohol and other drugs in death. Jennifer is Co-Chair of the Emerging Drugs Network of Australia (EDNA)’s Monitoring, Evaluation and Translation group (EDNA-MET), and Forensic Lead on the state-based project, EDNA-Vic (EDNAV). Jennifer led the world’s first research program on coward punch assaults in partnership with the Stop the Coward Punch Campaign, which was instrumental in changing Australian legislation. Her work was also pivotal in the 2018 rescheduling of codeine to prescription-only, and the introduction of Drug Checking Services to the state of Victoria. She has published extensively, presented her research throughout the world, and received a number of awards and travel grants in recognition of her work, including a prestigious 2019 Churchill Fellowship and the 2024 TIAFT Achievement Award. In 2014, Jennifer was a visiting postdoctoral researcher at the Karolinska Institute and National Board of Forensic Medicine, Sweden, and the French National Institute of Health and Medical Research in Paris, supported by a Victoria Fellowship. Jennifer is President of the Forensic and Clinical Toxicology Association (FACTA), on the Board of Directors for Stop the Coward Punch foundation, an Adviser for Pill Testing Australia, and Chair of the FACTA Drug Checking Committee. She is an Editor for Toxicology Communications and served as Editor of the TIAFT Bulletin from 2016-2024. Her research has stimulated public debate, engaged media and been directly responsible for changes in Australian policy and practice.