Sylvia Rumball
New Zealand chemist, ethicist and academic
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Sylvia Vine Sheat Rumball CNZM (née Sheat; born 1939) is a New Zealand scientist and an international expert in scientific research ethics.
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1939 (age 86–87)
University of Auckland (PhD)
Sylvia Rumball | |
|---|---|
Rumball, c. 1998 | |
| Born | Sylvia Vine Sheat 1939 (age 86–87) |
| Education | University of Canterbury (MSc) University of Auckland (PhD) |
| Scientific career | |
| Workplaces | Massey University |
| Thesis | Some structural investigations of copper co-ordination compounds (1966) |
| Neil Waters | |
Education
Rumball completed a BSc and MSc (1962) at the University of Canterbury. She moved to the University of Auckland where she undertook a PhD in chemistry (1966),[1] supervised by Professor (later Sir) Neil Waters.[2][3]
Career
During her PhD studies, Rumball worked as a junior lecturer at the University of Auckland from 1963 to 1966. She then moved to the University of Oxford on a postdoctoral fellowship and studied protein crystallography under Dorothy Hodgkin.[2]
Rumball joined Massey University as a lecturer in 1967.[2] She was promoted to associate professor in 2000[3] and to full professor by 2005, when she was also assistant to the Vice Chancellor (Equity and Ethics) at Massey.[4] She served on the University Council from 2005 to 2008. She was appointed Professor Emeritus in July 2009,[5] officially retiring in November of the same year.[2]
To celebrate the centenary of women's suffrage in New Zealand, Rumball was selected as one of eight women to give graduation addresses at Massey University in 1993.[6]
From 2002 to 2011 she was chair of the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction,[7] later known as the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART).[8] She also served on the Drug Free Sport New Zealand Board from 2007 to 2015.[9][10] Rumball also served on UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee and the International Council for Science's Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science.[2]
Honours and awards
Rumball was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to science, in the 1998 Queen's Birthday Honours.[11] In the 2008 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, also for service to science.[12]