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Professor Margaret
Brimble graduated from the University of Auckland in
1982 with a Masters degree in chemistry and
was awarded a Commonwealth Scholarship to study in the United Kingdom. She pursued graduate studies at Southampton University
and gained her PhD in 1986. She then took up
her initial academic appointment at Massey University.
After periods at the University of California, Berkeley and the University of Sydney, she returned to the University of Auckland in
1999 to take up the Chair in Organic and
Medicinal Chemistry. She has been awarded the Easterfield Medal, the
Hamilton
Prize, the Federation of Asian Chemical Societies Distinguished Young
Chemist
Award, the Novartis biennial chemistry lectureship for 2004 and the UK
Royal Society
Rosalind Franklin lectureship. In 2004 she was appointed a Member of
the New
Zealand Order of Merit for services to science and was also awarded a
James
Cook Research Fellowship. She is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New
Zealand,
the Royal Society of Chemistry UK and the Royal Australian Chemical
Institute,
and has been President of the International Society of Heterocyclic
Chemistry.
In 2007, she was named as the Asia-Pacific Laureate in the L’Oréal-UNESCO
Women in Science Awards. Her research interests include the synthesis
of
natural products containing bis-spiroacetal ring systems, the synthesis
of
pyranonaphthoquinone antibiotics, the synthesis of complex shellfish
toxins
containing spiroimines, the synthesis of alkaloids and peptidomimetics
for the
treatment of neurodegenerative disorders, and the synthesis of
glycopeptides as
components for cancer vaccines. She is also Head of Medicinal Chemistry
for
Neuren Pharmaceuticals Ltd, one of New Zealand’s first biotechnology companies.
Professor
of Mathematics at Victoria University of Wellington, Professor Downey
was
appointed to the Marsden Fund Council in March 2009.
He was awarded a
James Cook Fellowship in 2008 and was the inaugural McLaurin Fellow at
the NZ
Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (NZIMA) CoRE. He
is a
Fellow of the RSNZ. He is the only NZ-based mathematician to give
an
invited lecture at the International Congress of Mathematicians.
Dr
Rupert Sutherland
Rupert
Sutherland is a Principal Scientist at the Institute of
Geological & Nuclear Sciences (GNS) in Lower Hutt. He was
appointed
to the Marsden Fund Council in 2005.
After completing a Natural Sciences degree at Cambridge
University and
working as a petroleum industry consultant in the UK, Rupert moved to
New Zealand in 1991. He completed a PhD in geology and geophysics at
Otago University and moved to Wellington in 1995. Since then, he has
held visiting positions at Oxford University and the California
Institute of Technology.
Rupert’s personal research interests include global
and South
Pacific plate tectonics, and how this creates mountains, earthquakes,
and petroleum basins. He currently leads a public-good research
programme into the impacts of plate tectonics in and around New Zealand.
The Royal Society awarded Rupert the Hamilton Prize in 1995
for his
work on South Pacific plate tectonics. He sits on the editorial boards
of two international journals and chairs the GNS editorial board.
Professor Lydia
Wevers
Professor Lydia Wevers was born in the Netherlands
and emigrated to New Zealand as a small child. Educated at Victoria
University and St. Anne’s College, Oxford, she has taught in
universities in Australia and New Zealand. Since 2001 she has been the
Director of the Stout Research Centre for New Zealand Studies at
Victoria University. In 1998 Professor Wevers was Principal
Investigator
in the Marsden funded History of Print Culture project. She produced
two books from this work, Travelling to New Zealand (OUP, 2000) and
Country of Writing Travel Writing and New Zealand 1809-1900 (AUP,
2002). She has published widely on New Zealand and Australian
literature and cultural history. She is a member of the Interim Council
for the Humanities, the Arts Board, Creative New Zealand (2001-2006),
and the Advisory Committee, Te Ara Online Encyclopaedia of New Zealand.
Professor Wevers is also Chair of the Guardians/Kaitiaki of the
Alexander
Turnbull Library, and was a member of the Performance Based Research
Fund Humanities and Law Panel in 2003.
Dr Diana Martin
Dr Diana Martin is a Principal Scientist with the Institute of
Environmental Science & Research Limited Ltd (ESR) and was
appointed to the Marsden Fund Council in January, 2008. After studying
at the University of Otago, Dr Martin obtained a PhD at the University
of London. On returning to New Zealand, she was employed at the
Wellington Polytechnic before being appointed to a position at the
National Health Institute (later to be become part of ESR). Since then,
Dr Martin has been responsible for work on bacterial invasive
infections, rheumatic fever and other streptococcal infections,
zoonoses, legionellosis, and emerging bacterial pathogens. This work
has led to advisory work for several international bodies, including
the World Health Organisation. For the past 12 years, she has also been
an Advisor to the Ministry of Health on their Meningococcal Vaccine
Strategy. Dr Martin is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.
Professor Roger Morris
Professor Roger Morris is Gilruth
Professor of Animal Health at Massey University and Co-Director of the
Massey
University EpiCentre, a training, research and consultancy centre
dealing with control
of animal disease and diseases of animal origin in man, food safety,
and health
information systems. Also Managing
Director of MorVet Limited, which provides international consultancy
services
on disease control. He was appointed to
the Marsden Fund Council in February 2007.
Professor Morris obtained a BVSc (Hons) degree
from the University of Sydney in 1965, then a Master of
Veterinary Science degree from the University of Melbourne and a PhD
from the University of Reading.
He is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, Fellow of the
American College of Epidemiology, Fellow of the Australian College of
Veterinary Scientists, and
Fellow of Food Standards Australia New Zealand.
He was made a Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2003.
He taught at the University of Melbourne for 11
years, and next spent five
years in Canberra as Assistant Chief Veterinary Officer for
Australia.
He then moved to the United States as a Department Chairman at the
University of Minnesota, and in 1986 was appointed to his
current position.
His
principal research interests are in the epidemiology and control of
diseases such
as BSE and avian influenza; ecological, behavioural and statistical
aspects of
disease; the development of cost-effective disease surveillance
systems; and
disease modelling. He was the inaugural Chairman of the
International Society for Veterinary Epidemiology and Economics from
1979 to
1982, has advised on disease control and animal health research
throughout the
world, and has been extensively involved in global animal health
programmes through
international organisations.
Dr Grant Scobie
Principal Adviser in The Treasury since 1999, Dr Scobie was
appointed to the
Marsden Fund Council in March 2009. He was International Director
of the
International Centre for Tropical Agriculture (1995-99) and Professor
and Chair
of the Economics Department at the University of Waikato
(1990-95). He is
Chair of the Motu Economic and Public Policy Trust and has been a Board
Member
of Save the Children. He has published in the areas of returns to
investment of R&D, agricultural research in developing countries
and
science policy.
