Prof Ritchie, of the department of music, theatre and performing arts, has a PhD on the music of Bartok, moved to Dunedin to become Mozart Fellow in 1988-89, and was appointed an Otago lecturer in 2001.
The other associate professors promoted are: Merata Kawharu, Te Tumu: School of Maori, Pacific and Indigenous Studies; James Maclaurin, philosophy; Greg Jones, surgical sciences; Paul Hansen, economics; Sarah Derrett, preventive and social medicine; Ruth Empson, physiology; Louise Signal, public health, Wellington campus; Sarah Young, pathology; Jim Cotter, School of Physical Education, Sport and Exercise Sciences; Haxby Abbott, surgical sciences; Patrick Manning, medicine; Suetonia Palmer, medicine, Christchurch campus; Jessica Palmer, Faculty of Law; George Dias, anatomy; Inguruwatt Premachandra, accountancy and finance; Stephen Knowles, economics; John Horwood, psychological medicine, Christchurch; Ruth Fitzgerald, anthropology and archaeology; Greg Anderson, Centre for Neuroendocrinology, and anatomy; Michelle Thompson-Fawcett, geography; Claudine Stirling, chemistry; and David Bell, College of Education.
Prof Kawharu has written extensively on cultural knowledge and marae, has worked with the UN, and was awarded the MNZM for services to Maori education.
Prof Maclaurin was awarded a University of Otago Tertiary Teaching Excellence Award in 2011 and was instrumental in the development of the university’s new bachelor of arts and science degree.
Prof Jones is leading a national initiative to equitably improve cardiovascular disease screening in Aotearoa New Zealand.
During his 30-year Otago career, Prof Hansen has been an adviser to the World Health Organisation, been seconded to the Treasury and consulted for Pharmac, Housing New Zealand and the Ministry of Health.
Prof Derrett is director of the Injury Prevention Research Unit and her research considers not only injury but also health and disability outcomes, policy and equity.
Prof Empson was recently a New Zealand Fulbright Scholar in the United States and is pioneering state-of-the-art optical sensors to enable real-time synaptic monitoring in the awake brain.
Prof Signal is a leading health promotion researcher, practitioner and teacher and directs the Health Promotion and Policy Research Unit at Otago’s Wellington campus.
Prof Young heads the pathology department and is an academic immunologist, whose research focuses on developing immune therapies for treating cancer and autoimmune disease.
Prof Cotter researches how stressors in exercise and the environment affect people’s physiological systems and functional abilities.
Prof Abbott’s research has focused on managing common musculoskeletal problems in adults, particularly osteoarthritis, and has served as chief editor of national and international academic journals.
Prof Manning is a consultant endocrinologist at the Southern District Health Board, having published more than 100 papers in peer-reviewed medical journals.
Prof Suetonia Palmer is a kidney specialist who has received a Rutherford Discovery Fellowship and a L’Oreal For Women in Science Fellowship for her work.
Prof Jessica Palmer’s research focuses on issues arising in trusts and the laws of contract and restitution and her work is cited regularly by judges and other academics, both in New Zealand and overseas.
Prof Dias undertakes research on biomaterials. He pioneered the development of bone-graft substitutes from wool protein.
Prof Premachandra has a strong management science and statistical background and his international research collaborations include researchers from the United States, Japan, Australia and Sri Lanka.
Prof Knowles is a former head of economics at Otago and former president of the New Zealand Association of Economists. He has used cross-country data to analyse why some countries are poorer than others.
Prof Horwood is director of the long-running Christchurch Health and Development Study.
Prof Fitzgerald’s research, on aspects of the social significance of health, has been recognised by a Royal Society Medal (NZ) and her election as a Fellow of the Royal Anthropological Institute (UK).
Prof Anderson’s research group focuses on the regulation of fertility by hormones such as leptin and insulin that provide the brain with information about the body’s nutritional status.
Over the past 20 years, Prof Thompson-Fawcett has focused most of her research on investigating the level of achievement of Maori communities’ aspirations, including for urban design and cultural landscape management.
Prof Stirling is an isotope geochemist and is director of the Centre for Trace Element Analysis.
Prof Bell’s teaching focuses largely on curriculum and pedagogy in humanities subjects, including the visual arts, art history and classics.
Staff promoted to associate professor. — Azam Ali, Centre for Materials Science and Technology; John Ashton, pharmacology and toxicology; Alaa Bekhit, food science; Rebecca Campbell, physiology; Ben Daniel Motidyang, Higher Education Development Centre; Fiona Edgar, management; David Eyers, computer science; Sebastian Filep, tourism; Alex Gunn, College of Education; Hilary Halba, music, theatre and performing arts; Sian Halcrow, anatomy; James Headley, politics; Janice Lord, botany; Nigel Lucas, chemistry; Liana Machado, psychology; Sandra Mandic, physical education; Simone Marshall, English; Christoph Matthaei, zoology; Lynn McBain, zoology; Giles Newton-Howes, psychological medicine, Wellington; David Orlovich, botany; Bruce Russell, microbiology and immunology; Mike Sam, physical education; Ben Schonthal, theology and religion; Daryl Schwenke, physiology; Philippa Seaton, postgraduate nursing, Christchurch; Sally Shaw, physical education; Trent Smith, economics; Lee Thompson, population health, Christchurch; Steve Tumilty, physiotherapy; Sigurd Wilbanks, biochemistry; Hamish Wilson, Medical School; Ming Zhang, anatomy.
Research associate professors. — Anitra Carr, pathology, Christchurch; Dawn Coates, oral and diagnostic and surgical sciences; Margaret Currie, pathology, Christchurch; Michelle McConnell, microbiology and immunology; John Pearson, dean’s department, Christchurch; Nevil Pierse, public health, Wellington; Janet Stephenson, geography.
Clinical Associate Prof: Darren Hooks, medicine, Wellington.