Southern Honours: Harlene Hayne

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Harlene Hayne

Prof Harlene Hayne, of Mosgiel, has been awarded an ONZM for services to scientific and medical research.

Prof Hayne is head of the University of Otago's psychology department and specialises in the research of memory and the developmental process of memory.

She came to Dunedin from the United States in 1992, after completing her PhD at Rutgers University and spending three years at Princeton University as a postdoctoral fellow.

She has been a researcher at Otago University for more than 10 years and her memory research is often cited in courtrooms in New Zealand and overseas.

Last December, she hit the headlines when she suggested there was a "strong risk" the evidence of children involved in the 1993 Peter Ellis sex abuse case was contaminated because of the way interviews were carried out by the police.

She urged the courts to reconsider the case.

Prof Hayne is a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand, has served on the Royal Society's Academy Council, and is a member of both the Marsden Fund Council and the New Zealand National Science Panel.

She was awarded a personal chair in psychology at the University of Otago in 2002.

She was a former board member of the International Society for Developmental Psychobiology and is a member of several associations, including the Society for Research in Child Development, the International Society for Infant Studies and the University of Otago Memory Research Theme.

She is a consultant reviewer to funding agencies, wrote The Development of Implicit and Explicit Memory in 2001 and contributes to numerous national and international journals.

Prof Hayne will become the research and enterprise deputy vice-chancellor from February, overseeing research and commercial activities.

She will take over from Prof Geoff White.

Prof Hayne could not be contacted for comment.