Jo Neale is Professor in Addictions Qualitative Research based within the National Addiction Centre and working across the Biomedical Research Centre at the Institute of Psychiatry, Psychology and Neuroscience. She is also Conjunct Professor in the Centre for Social Research in Health at the University of New South Wales, Australia. Jo originally qualified as a social worker and has held positions at the University of Glasgow, the University of York, and Oxford Brookes University, where she was Professor of Public Health. 

Jo has undertaken a range of qualitative and quantitative studies exploring topics relating to both homelessness and addiction. Examples include: the role of hostels for homeless people; service provision for homeless drug users; homeless drug users’ use of computer assisted therapy; social networks and relationships in emergency hostels and night shelters; drug users' views of pharmacy services; non-fatal drug overdose; drug driving; barriers to accessing drug treatment; user involvement in drug treatment decision-making; drug treatment effectiveness; the everyday lives of recovering heroin users; and peer-to-peer education amongst injectors. 

Her current research focuses on the development of patient reported outcome measures within the addictions; evaluations of recovery oriented interventions; the experiences and needs of people who frequently attend emergency departments for alcohol-related reasons; addiction and sleep; hospital discharge schemes for homeless people; and community pharmacist provision of contraception services for women receiving opiate agonist treatment. She has a particular interest in the development of analytic methods to ensure rigour and transparency in qualitative research.

In 2013, Jo founded the Addiction Service User Group (SURG) in collaboration with the Aurora Project in Lambeth, London.