Office Bearers

Bernadette Richards
President

Rachel A. Ankeny
Vice-President

Tamra Maree Lysaght
Secretary

Jaklin Eliott
Treasurer
General Committee

Neil Pickering

Nathan Emmerich
Nathan Emmerich is a Senior Lecturer in Bioethics at the ANU Medical School where he is the lead for Professionalism and Leadership in Phase One of the MChD. His primary pedagogic contribution to the MChD concerns medical ethics, he convenes an upper level and interdisciplinary undergraduate course ‘Bioethics and Beyond’ and contributes to bioethics education in the College of Science. His current research interests related to conscientious objection, the regulation of abortion, and conceptions of (bio)ethical expertise.

Courtney Hempton
Courtney Hempton is a bioethicist and interdisciplinary researcher. She has disciplinary training in psychology and bioethics, and research interests in health law, policy, and practice, particularly the regulation of dying and death, ageing, and mental health, and the history of bioethics. Currently, Courtney is an Associate Research Fellow with the Alfred Deakin Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation at Deakin University. She contributes to the Australian Research Council-funded Discovery Early Career Research Award project ‘Bioethics in the antipodes: A history of Australian bioethics since the 1980s’, led by Dr Christopher Mayes.
Courtney holds a Master of Bioethics, and is also currently a PhD Candidate with the Monash Bioethics Centre at Monash University. Her doctoral research is on the biopolitics of voluntary assisted dying, with focus on the emergence of law, policies, and practices regarding ‘voluntary assisted dying’ in the Australian state of Victoria.

Lynn Woodward
Dr Lynn Woodward is a Senior Lecturer in the College of Medicine & Dentistry at James Cook University. Lynn is interested in a range of research areas, including the involvement of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples in biobanks, and was involved with the community consultation for QIMR’s Genomic Partnerships: Guidelines for genomic research with Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples of Queensland. She is also interested in the education of medical, allied health and science students in the ethical considerations of their work, their research and their community involvement.

Shannon Lovell Greene
Shannon is a transmasculine registrar in obstetrics and gynecology in regional Tasmania with a special interest in law and ethics as it pertains to reproductive rights, transgender rights and public health. They have completed BSc, BA, LLB, Master of Bioethics, MBBS, Adv DRANZCOG and are currently completing their MPH and Master of Forensic Medicine in order to attain a Fellowship in Legal Medicine. They have undertaken research into paternalism in gynaecology as it pertains to transmasculine access to permanent sterilisation and are currently researching the laws and ethical limitations access to termination services in regional and rural areas affect both mental health and family violence, and the impact COVID has had on malnutrition and rise of obesity in Australia. They are committed to rural healthcare and the unique ethical and legal situations that arise from working in regional, resource poor areas and volunteers with the Northern Tasmanian Sexual Assault and Forensic Examination service.

Clare Delany
Clare researches and teaches in areas of critical thinking, clinical reasoning, resilience for learning, and paediatric bioethics. In health professions education. In health education, Clare works closely with health professionals from a variety of disciplines to build their knowledge about health education theory and practice and to develop their capability to conduct meaningful education research relevant to their particular clinical context. In clinical ethics, Clare conducts both individual and committee-based clinical consultations, supporting clinicians in ethical reasoning and deliberation. Clare is the lead editor of ‘Learning and Teaching in Clinical contexts (2018), and co-editor of ‘When Doctors and Parents Disagree: Ethics, Paediatrics and the Zone of Parental Discretion’ (2017).
In Research Ethics, Clare chairs the University of Melbourne Human Ethics Subcommittee for Education, Fine Arts, Music and Business. Clare is chair of the Australasian Ethics Network Conference in 2020.

Wendy Lipworth
Wendy Lipworth (MBBS, PhD) is a bioethicist at the University of Sydney. Her work spans a wide range of topics, with a particular focus on organisational/professional ethics and the ethics of health technology research, innovation and translation. She uses both empirical and theoretical bioethics analysis to develop and test new approaches to moral problems that are sophisticated enough to account for the complexities and realities of contemporary organisations and likely to be accepted and integrated into practice. She has been supported by NHMRC Fellowships throughout her career and haS received over $5M in Category 1 grant funding. She has led three 3 NHMRC project/Ideas grants on conflict of interest, access to medicines and commercial influences over assisted reproductive technology. She currently supervises three postgraduate research students and coordinates postgraduate teaching on medicines policy, economics and ethics.

Malcolm Smith
Malcolm is an Associate Professor at the Griffith Law School. He is a recognised expert in the field of health law. He has an extensive body of peer-reviewed publications in the field of health law, torts and bioethics, including publications in leading national and international journals. Malcolm’s research focuses on the regulation of assisted reproductive technology, medical negligence and consent to medical treatment. Malcolm has also obtained practical legal experience in the field of medical negligence litigation, most recently from his role as Senior Adviser at Corrs Chambers Westgarth Lawyers. Malcolm also has experience in clinical ethics, having sat on a number of clinical ethics committees. He currently sits on the Griffith University Human Research Ethics Committee and was also previously a member of the Human Research Ethics Committee for Metro South, Brisbane (Queensland Health).

Paul Komesaroff
Paul Komesaroff is a physician, researcher and philosopher at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, where he is Professor of Medicine and Executive Director of Global Reconciliation, an international collaboration that promotes communication and dialogue across cultural, racial, religious, political and other kinds of difference. He is involved in a wide range of teaching, research and action projects in reconciliation and ethics. These span a broad field, including the impact of new technologies on health and society, consent in research, the experience of illness, palliative care and end of life issues, complementary medicines, obesity, and cross-cultural teaching and learning.

Hudson Birden
Hudson is the Chair of the Human Research Ethics Committee, Townsville University Hospital and Health Service, and a Senior Lecturer at The University of Sydney Medical School.