Gareth Jones, Keynote Speaker
Death on Display: Plastinates as a Cultural Phenomenon
Gareth Jones CNZM, is Professor of Anatomy and Structural Biology in the University of Otago, where he also serves as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Academic and International). He is a member of the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART) for the New Zealand Government. He has published widely on bioethical issues, recent books including Speaking for the Dead: Cadavers in Biology and Medicine (2000), Clones: The Clowns of Technology? (2001), Designers of the Future: Who Makes the Decisions? (2005), and Bioethics: When the Challenges of Life Become Too Difficult (2007). He is co-author with Alastair Campbell and Grant Gillett of Medical Ethics (Fourth Edition, 2005). Gareth is currently working on a revised edition of Speaking for the Dead.
Stephen
Cordner
Human Tissue Banks – for Profit or Not?
Stephen Cordner graduated in Medicine from the University of Melbourne in 1977. After his internship at the Royal Melbourne Hospital he spent two years in the Department of Pathology at Geelong Hospital which was headed by Vernon Plueckhahn, then Australia’s foremost forensic pathologist. In 1981 he took up an appointment as Lecturer, and later Senior Lecturer, in Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London where he stayed until 1987. He worked there with the Head of the Department, Keith Mant, and with Keith Simpson who, although retired, was still active in the field. During this period he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and gained his membership of the Royal College of Pathologists of Great Britain. Stephen was appointed Foundation Professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University and Foundation Director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in 1987. During his time at Monash, close links between the Faculties of Medicine and Law have been developed reflecting his interest in the interaction generally of these two disciplines. In more recent years, Stephen has developed his interest in the intersection of Forensic Medicine and Human Rights. This has involved work in East Timor and Kosovo as well as a year as Consultant in Forensic Pathology to the International Committee of the Red Cross based in Geneva. This last posting, in 2003, involved work on the ICRC’s project The Missing and included missions to the Former Yugoslavia and Iraq. Professor Cordner was recently awarded Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for service to forensic medicine, particularly as a contributor to the development of forensic pathology in Australia and internationally.
Jenny
Hayes
The Body Donor Program at the University of Melbourne
Jenny Hayes is a medical graduate from the University of Melbourne and a senior lecturer in the Department of Anatomy and Cell Biology. She coordinates the medical anatomy program and teaches in all of the undergraduate anatomy courses. Jenny is the medical officer for the Body Donor Program.
Megan Hicks
Bringing out the Dead: Museum Displays of Human Remains
Megan Hicks is the commissioning producer of permanent galleries at the Powerhouse Museum in Sydney. Prior to this appointment she was the Museum’s curator of health and medicine. In that role, Megan curated such exhibitions as Taking precautions: the story of contraception and Works wonders: stories about home remedies, as well as the website The rags: paraphernalia of menstruation. Megan’s interest in the exhibiting of human remains arose from her involvement with the Health and Medicine Museums Special Interest Group, whose members include professional and volunteer curators dealing with the question of how best to manage human specimens in their collections.
Philomena Horsley
Between Death and Disposal: Practices of the Hospital Autopsy
Philomena Horsley is completing a PhD on the demise of the hospital autopsy, based on fieldwork in the Department of Anatomical Pathology at a public hospital. She has worked extensively in the areas of disability, women’s health, sexuality and HIV/AIDS. Philomena has lectured in social health and research ethics for Monash University and is currently employed at the Australian Research Centre in Sex, Health & Society (La Trobe University). She is a member of several Human Research Ethics Committees and has served on a range of Ministerial Advisory Committees and Boards of Health Services.
Ross Jones
‘With my corpus half dissected, and my joints well-nigh bisected’
Dissection: Its Protagonists and Subjects at the University of Melbourne during the Nineteenth Century
Ross Jones gained an honours degree in history from the University of
Melbourne, and taught history in secondary schools in Melbourne, Oxford
and Canberra. In 2000, he completed a PhD at Monash University on the
eugenics movement in Australia. Since then he has been teaching medical
history at the University of Melbourne and writing medical and educational
history. He is a Fellow of the Department of History and Philosophy of
Science and the Johnstone-Need Medical History Unit at the University of Melbourne.
Helen
MacDonald
Dealing with the Dead: The Inspector of Anatomy
Helen MacDonald is an historian and ARC Postdoctoral Fellow at The Australian Centre, School of Historical Studies, University of Melbourne. Her Discovery Project, ‘Possessing the Dead: The Artful Science of Anatomy’, explores encounters between medical scientists, dead bodies and the law in Britain and Australia. Helen’s book, Human Remains, was published by Yale University Press (UK and US, 2006) and Melbourne University Press (Australia, 2005) and won the Victorian Premier’s Literary Award for a First Book of History. In addition to writing for academic journals, Helen is published in the Age, Weekend Australian, New Scientist, Australian Literary Review, and the literary journal Meanjin. She has recently begun work on her new book, Possessing theV
Loane
Skene
Proprietary Interests in Human Bodies and Excised Tissue
Loane Skene is a Professor of Law in the Law and Medical Faculties at the University of Melbourne and Chair of the Board of Undergraduate Studies. She is Deputy Director of the Centre of Law and Genetics (University of Tasmania and University of Melbourne) and Director of the Medical Ethics Program of the Centre of Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics (CAPPE) (Charles Sturt University and University of Melbourne). Her publications include the widely used text, Law and Medical Practice: Rights, Duties, Claims and Defences. She has served on many federal and state advisory committees, especially concerning the legal regulation of genetic testing. She was Deputy Chair of the Lockhart Committee on Human Cloning and Embryo Research.
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