The Ethics Advisory Panel was established to provide the Authority with expert advice and assistance on applications under the Hazardous Substances and New Organisms (HSNO) Act which raise ethical and cultural issues. The panel will also be involved in work by ERMA New Zealand on the development of frameworks and guidelines for dealing with such issues.
The panel consists of three members:
Denise Church (Convenor) QSO
Denise Church has been a member and Convenor of the Ethics Advisory
Panel since its establishment in April 2004. Denise has degrees in
Zoology, Economics, Resource Management, and Urban and Regional
Planning.
She has worked in the field of environmental management since 1977, with
experience in New Zealand, the USA, and the UK. From 1996 to 2001,
Denise was Chief Executive at the Ministry for the Environment.
She is now on the Boards of the Foundation for Research, Science and
Technology, the National Centre for Tertiary Teaching Excellence, the
Wellington Zoo Trust, and WWF New Zealand and practises as a consultant
in leadership development, and policy and strategic management.
Professor Sylvia Rumball CNZM
Sylvia Rumball has been a member of the Ethics Advisory Panel since
its establishment in April 2004. She has an MSc (First Class Hons)
from the University of Canterbury and a PhD in Chemistry from the
University of Auckland. Sylvia has spent her academic career at
Massey University, interspersed with periods overseas. At Massey
University she conducted research into the structure and functions
of human milk proteins and taught chemistry for many years before
becoming Dean of Science and now is the Assistant to the
Vice-Chancellor (Research Ethics).Sylvia is involved with research ethics at the institutional, national and international level. She is currently Chair of the New Zealand Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology, Chair of the Massey University Human Ethics Chairs Committee and a member of the ICSU Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science.
She is a former member of the UNESCO International Bioethics Committee, the Health Research Council Ethics Committee and a former chair of the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction. She has also been an auditor for the New Zealand Universities Academic Audit Unit.
Sylvia was made an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to science in 1998 and in 2008 was elevated to Companion.
Associate Professor Nicholas Agar
Nicholas Agar joined the Ethics Advisory Panel in April 2008.
Nicholas has a BA with major in Philosophy from Auckland University,
Postgraduate Diploma in Arts in Philosophy from Otago University, MA
in Philosophy from Victoria University of Wellington and a PhD in
Philosophy from the Research School of Social Sciences, Australian
National University, Canberra, Australia. He has written many publications including Lifes Intrinsic Value: Science, Nature and Value, (Columbia University Press, 2001) and Perfect Copy: Unravelling the Cloning Debate, (Cambridge: Icon Books, 2002).
He has a very well balanced combination of both the theory and practice of analysis of ethical issues and speaks very sensibly about how these two things link together. Nicholas is well connected to current networks and is aware of the nature of many of the issues we face. Nicholas will be with the Panel for a term of three years.