University of New South Wales - IHHR Homepage - Steering Committee of The Initiative for Health and Human Rights

Daniel Tarantola

Professor of Health and Human Rights

Chair of the UNSW Initiative for Health and Human Rights - Faculty of Medicine, Law and FASS

Prof. Daniel Tarantola's career includes being instrumental in the foundation of the world-reknowned Medecins Sans Frontieres and the first doctor to be employed in the field for this organisation.

Current interests include research in Health and Human Rights policies and programmes, particularly on HIV and related diseases, emerging diseases, conflicts, population displacement, climate change and vulnerable populations.

1974-1991: Worked with the World Health Organization (WHO) on large scale international health programmes.
1991-1998: Lecturer in Population and International Health, Harvard School of Public Health and Senior Associate of the François-Xavier Bagnoud Center for Health and Human Rights. Daniel was a close collaborator of the late, great Jonathon Mann, a senior associate at the François-Xavier Bagnoud Centre for Health and Human Rights at Harvard University.
1998-2004: Senior Policy Adviser to the Director General, WHO, and, later, Director of the department of Immunization, Vaccines and Biologicals.
2005: Chair of the Initiative for Health and Human Rights, a unique cross-disciplined collaboration at UNSW.

Eileen Baldry Senior Lecturer School of Social Work - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Eileen has conducted research projects on keeping families with a child with a disability safely together (ARC funding in collaboration with the Spastic Centre of NSW); is collaborating on social and community development models especially in social housing; and is working with a colleague Associate Professor Sue Green on Indigenous Australians and Social Work theory and education. Her work on post-release homelessness of ex-prisoners and other social factors (funded by AHURI) indicates the vital importance of supported accommodation post-release to help prevent re-imprisonment.
Megan Davis Senior Lecturer and Director of Indigenous Law Centre - Faculty of Law Megan Davis' scholarship involves critical analysis of Indigenous public law issues in particular constitutional reform and democratic theory and governance. Megan's research also includes Indigenous peoples rights in international law, in particular UN treaty body jurisprudence and the UN Declaration on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples and she is also an Australian member of the International Law Association's Indigenous Rights Committee.
John DeWit Director of National Centre in HIV Social Research - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Professor John de Wit joins NCHSR from Utrecht University in the Netherlands where he was Professor in Social Psychology of Health and Sexuality in the Unit of Social and Organizational Psychology.
Andrea Durbach Director Australian Human Rights Centre - Faculty of Law Associate Professor Andrea Durbach teaches ethics, human rights and public interest litigation in the UNSW Faculty of Law and is the Director of the University's Australian Human Rights Centre. She has worked with domestic and international human rights organizations, governments, universities and the private sector on a wide range of human rights initiatives. Andrea was Director of the Public Interest Advocacy Centre (PIAC), an independent litigation and policy institute, for 13 years. In the area of health, her work has focused on public health policy research and litigation on informed consent, access to medical records, privacy and discrimination.
Patrick Earle Executive Director Diplomacy Training Program - Faculty of Law The Diplomacy Training Program (DTP) is an independent NGO which seeks to advance human rights and empower civil society in the Asia Pacific region through quality education and training, and the building of skills and capacity in non-governmental organisations and for individual human rights defenders and community advocates. The DTP was founded in 1989 by HE Jose Ramos-Horta, 1996 Nobel Peace Laureate and current President of Timor-Leste. Since January 1990, the DTP has conducted an 'Annual Regional Human Rights and Peoples' Diplomacy Training Program'.
Christine Forster Lecturer and Australian Human Rights Centre Editor - Faculty of Law I have been in the Faculty of Law for nine years and I teach Health and Medical Law, Torts and Feminist Jurisprudence. My primary research interests are human rights law, indigenous issues and discrimination against women. I have a particular interest in health issues as they pertain to women and indigenous Australians and the implementation of human rights conventions in response to those issues. I am an editor of the Australian Human Rights Journal and am enthusiastically involved in promoting legal education for indigenous Australian within the law school.
Richard Hugman Head of School of Social Work - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Richard Hugman is a qualified social worker who spent over a decade in direct practice. His current research includes developing new approaches in ethics for the caring professions; also the application of new ethical theory to research undertaken with refugees (in conjunction with the Centre for Refugee Research). Richard is currently working with UNICEF Vietnam to advise the Vietnam Government on the development of professional social work. Richard is an international editorial advisor to Journal of Interprofessional Care, Social Work Education, Ethics & Social Welfare and Practice. He is a Fellow of the Australian Association of Gerontology.
Michael Johnson A/Professor, School of Social Science and International Studies - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Michael Johnson is an Associate Professor and the Coordinator of the Comparative Development Program in the School of Social Science and Policy at UNSW. Michael is the coordinator of post-graduate coursework programs in policy studies at UNSW and is a member of the Faculty of Commerce and the Centre for Applied Economic Research at UNSW. Michael's research interests are the transformation of the public sector at all levels of government. His current research projects include studies of institutional reform of public sector agencies and business enterprises and the development of an appropriate transport infrastructure in Sydney.
Ilan Katz Professor, Director of Social Policy Research Centre - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Professor Katz has directed the SPRC since January 2005. He has had many years of policy, practice and research experience in policy and service delivery in the UK and Australia. His research experience covers a wide range of issues relating to children and families and includes child protection, youth justice, prevention and family support, children and communities, SES and child outcomes, children of parents with mental illness, comparative child welfare systems, race and ethnicity and adoption.
Rosemary Kayess President of Disability Studies and Research Institute - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences From 2003 to 2006 Rosemary Kayess, a human rights lawyer, was a member of the Australian delegation to the United Nations committee that negotiated the text of the international treaty that sets out the fundamental human rights of people with disability.
George Kouvaros A/Professor, Director of Postgraduate Research School of English, Media and Performing Arts - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Research interest: Film and performance, screen acting, Stanislavsky, contemporary film theory; the cinema of John Cassavetes; American independent cinema; neo-realism; film and photography; Andre Bazin; the films of Jean Rouch. Current teaching: MEFT1200: Introduction to Film (co-convenor), MEFT3202: Explorations in Contemporary Film Theory (convenor). Previous teaching: MEFT2200: Contemporary Appraoches to the Cinema, MEFT2203: The Hollywood System.
Gillian Moon Lecturer - Faculty of Law Gillian's research interests are International human rights law, with particular emphasis on economic, social and cultural rights and on human rights in the global economy and in the World Trade Organisation, The rights of Indigenous peoples.
Dr John Pace Faculty of Law Dr John Pace is a UNSW Visiting Fellow in the Faculty of Law with over 40 years experience in international human rights law. After returning to Australia in early 2006 he joined the Board of the Diplomacy Training Program affiliated with the Faculty of Law. He is also an International Advisor to the Asia Pacific Human Rights Information Centre (Osaka), and International Advisor to the Mediterranean Journal of Human Rights (Malta).
Eileen Pittway Director Centre for Refugee Research - Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Eileen lectures in the area of International Social Development. Eileen has been actively involved in refugee resettlement policy, with a focus on refugee women, and the women's movement for over twenty years. Her major area of research has been into the issue of rape in conflict situations. She participates in a range of United Nations meeting at an international level and has an ongoing interest in the relationship between the United Nations and civil society, in particular in Human Rights. In 2001 she received a Human Rights award from the Human Rights and Equal Opportunity Commission for her work with refugee women. She is currently working on a research project with refugee women in Kenya and on the Thai Burma border focusing on the notion of "international protection" in the context of the sexual and gender based violence experienced by refugee women. She is a member of Asian Women's Human Rights Council and Co-Chair of Asia Pacific Women's Watch.

Derrick Silove Professor, Head of School of Psychiatry - Faculty of Medicine Senior academic staff in the School of Psychiatry have interests in the anxiety and depressive disorders, neuropsychiatry, psychogeriatrics, child and adolescent psychiatry, psychopharmacology, schizophrenia, liaison psychiatry, post-natal disorders, community psychiatry, psycho-immunology, social psychiatry, epidemiology and psychiatry in primary practice.
Zac Steel Senior Lecturer, School of Psychiatry - Faculty of Medicine Zac Steel is a senior lecturer in the school of Psychiatry and also Acting Director, Center for Population Mental Health Research, Sydney South West Area Health Service. His research interests are in the field of Social Psychiatry, cross cultural differences in psychiatric epidemiology, refugee mental health, mental health and human rights, psychological management of psychotic disorders.
Niamh Stephenson Senior Lecturer in Social Science School of Public Health & Community Medicine - Faculty of Medicine Niamhs research interests include public understandings of contagion and the role and use of experience in social and political transformation. She is a co-author (with Dimitris Papadopoulos) of Analysing Everyday Experience: Social Research and Political Change (Palgrave) and has published in the fields of social research, theoretical and critical psychology and cultural studies.
Catherine Spooner Senior Research Fellow, School of Public Health & Community Medicine - Faculty of Medicine Catherine Spooner has a disciplinary background in psychology and public health and has worked in government, not-for-profit, private and academic settings. Her main area of expertise relates to alcohol and other drug problems, particularly among youth. Dr Spooner has investigated the aetiology of drug problems, trialled innovative research methods with drug users, and conducted intervention research with the health, community, criminal justice, education and law enforcement sectors. Dr Spooner is now with the Social Policy Research Centre, continuing her research in relation to children and youth, alcohol and other drug issues, and other social issues.
Heather Worth A/Professor, School of Public Health & Community Medicine - Faculty of Medicine My research has been primarily in the area of HIV, gender, and sexuality, with a recent emphasis on HIV and global politics. I have also co-edited three books in the area of continental social theory. I have (with others) been awarded a total of close to $6 million in external and internal research funding over the last five years. In the last six months I have been involved in developing the international portfolio of the Centre, and, along with others, have set up social research projects in Sri Lanka, Papua New Guinea, Indonesia and East Timor. However, I am also involved in local research collaborations with sex worker, gay community and Aboriginal organisations.
Anthony Zwi Professor, School of Public Health & Community Medicine - Faculty of Medicine Professor Zwi has strong interests in international health and policy and seeks to enhance the interface between research and policy and practice. He has ongoing commitments to teaching and research concerning health in conflict-affected settings, and is interested in exploring and responding to the ethical, human rights, and service challenges facing communities, health workers and health systems in these settings.
Andrew Byrnes Professor in Law, Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Law Andrew Byrnes joined the UNSW Law Faculty as Professor of International Law in May 2005. Previously, he was Professor of Law at the Australian National University (2001-2005) and prior to that was Associate Professor of Law at the Faculty of Law, University of Hong Kong, where he was Director of the Centre for Comparative and Public Law and Director of the Master of Laws in Human Rights until his departure in 2001.

Associate Deans (Research)

Terry Campbell Professor in Medicine, Senior Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Medicine Terry Campbell is the Head of the Department of Medicine at St Vincent's Hospital, University of New South Wales, and Deputy Director of the Victor Chang Cardiac Research Institute. He is Past President of the Cardiac Society of Australia and New Zealand (2000-2), and served as the Chair of the Therapeutics Advisory Committee of the Royal Australian College of Physicians from 1996 to 2000. He has also served 10 years as a Director of the New South Wales division of the National Heart Foundation, and was the Honorary Secretary/Treasurer of the XIV World Congress of Cardiology in Sydney in 2002. He has been a member of the Pharmaceutical benefits Advisory Committee since 2001. Professor Campbell's extensive research work has encompassed both basic laboratory research in cardiac pharmacology and clinical cardiological research. His basic research activities include cardiac electrophysiology and pharmacology, using patch-clamp methods to study individual cardiac ion channels and their modulation by drugs and structure-function relationships. His clinical research activities have been related to drug therapy for arrhythmias, heart failure and ischaemic heart disease. He has published well over 100 peer-reviewed papers in these fields. More recently, he has become heavily involved in UNSW administration as Senior Associate Dean, Faculty of Medicine.
Paul Patton Professor in History and Philosophy, Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Paul Patton has translated and written widely on issues in 20th Century French Philosophy, including the work of Deleuze, Derrida and Foucault. He is the author of Deleuze and the Political (Routledge, 2000) and editor (with John Protevi) of Between Deleuze and Derrida (Continuum 2003) and Deleuze: A Critical Reader (Blackwell 1996). His recent work focuses on political philosophy, including issues relating to the rights of colonised Indigenous peoples. He is co-editor (with Duncan Ivison and Will Sanders) of Political Theory and the Rights of Indigenous Peoples (Cambridge 2000). He has written entries on â€˜Foucaultâ€™ for Boucher and Kelly eds Political Thinkers: From Socrates to the Present, OUP 2003, and on â€˜Poststructuralist and Pragmatist Political Theoryâ€™ for Dryzek, Honig and Phillips eds The Oxford Handbook of Political Theory, OUP 2006. He is on the Editorial Board of Philosophy Compass and the Editorial Advisory Board of Theory and Event.
Kathy Bowrey Professor in Law, Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Law Kathy Bowrey was appointed as a Professor to the Faculty of Law, UNSW in 2007. She has previously worked at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology (2006-2007), UNSW (1999-2006) and Macquarie University (1990-1999). Her publications primarily relate to the cultural aspects of intellectual property and information technology regulation, reflecting a broad range of interests pertaining to socio-legal history, media and cultural studies, and legal theory.

Non-government Organisations

Don Baxter

Executive Director The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO)

Don Baxter is the Executive Director of the Australian Federation of AIDS Organisation (AFAO), the national peak body of the HIV community response in Australia. Since 1986 Don has been involved in national leadership positions and key advisory bodies in Australia's national HIV response - both elected and Ministerially appointed.Over the last five years he has been advising APCASO and its members, along with a range of Asia Pacific regional inter-governmental bodies, on the need and mechanisms to incorporate the human rights of marginalised and most-affected communities, including people with HIV, at the centre of their HIV response if they are to be effective in both HIV prevention and treatments uptake.

Our thankyou to...

Former IHHR Steering Committee Members

Sue Kippax Retired Director of National Centre in HIV Social Research - FASS Professor Kippax is a social researcher of international standing with over twenty years experience. She has an extensive track record in sexuality and illicit drug use research and, more generally, the interface between social aspects of health and illness and clinical practice. She is a Fellow of the Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia. As Director of the National Centre in HIV Social Research (NCHSR) at the University of New South Wales, Professor Kippax manages a programme of research into the social aspects of the prevention and care of HIV, hepatitis C, and sexually transmissible infections (STIs). Through her research, teaching and policy advisory roles Professor Kippax has played a central role in the framing of Australia's response to these blood borne viruses and infections.
Janet Chan Professor and Associate Dean (Research) Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences Professor Chan is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia. Her research interests include criminal justice policy and practice, sociology of organization and occupation, and the social organization of creativity. She is internationally recognized for her contributions to policing research, especially her work on policing in a multicultural society, policy culture, police training and socialization, police reform, the use of information technology in policing and the legal regulation of police discretion in juvenile justice.
IHHR Steering Committee Affiliate
Susan Priest Conjoint Senior Lecturer, School of Public Health and Community Medicine - Faculty of Medicine. Susan Priest's Research Interests include mental health issues, anxiety and depression in women, pregnancy and posnatal, sexual and reproductive health issues, ART and IVF,infant mental health, primary health care approaches to early intervention by midiwves and GP's. Psychosocial assessment in health care settings.
IHHR Steering Committee Affiliate
David Traynor International Programs, The Australian Federation of AIDS Organisations (AFAO) ^ back to top