Full name: Central Health and Disability Ethics Committee
Short name: Central HDEC
Abbreviation: CEN
OHRP(external link) ref: IRB00008712
Please note it is inappropriate to contact committee members directly regarding HDEC matters.
Download HDEC Terms of Reference [PDF, 109 KB]
No meetings were postponed or cancelled due to inability to make quorum.
Membership category: Lay
Date of appointment: 03 March 2025
Current term expires: 02 March 2030
Joan has worked as the Executive Director of the Ethics Boards (Institutional Review Boards) at the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health since 2008, where she oversees and provides regulatory oversight for two ethics boards. She has a law degree (J.D.) and a masters in ethics with a focus on bioethics. She has served on U.S. Fogarty ethics training grants, visiting University ethics boards in Zambia, Ethiopia, and Malawi, and has served as a Fulbright Specialist in New Zealand and in Trinidad. She is now based in Wellington.
Membership category: Lay (Consumer/Community Perspectives)
Date of appointment: 03 March 2025
Current term expires: 02 March 2030
Sandy has her own consulting company and also works on a voluntary basis with various community groups assisting with policy and procedure, writing programmes and evaluations, clinical supervision of staff, business plans, and strategic planning. Her qualifications include a MA in Management (Massey), a MA in Criminal Justice (Victoria), a Certificate in Clinical Supervision (CIT), along with post graduate qualifications in Dispute Resolution (Massey) and Human Resources (Victoria). She has also worked with offenders, youth at risk, and in the area of Māori mental health. She has a lifelong addiction to learning and loves to travel and learn about different cultures and history. She is Ngā Puhi and the proud mother of three and nana of one, and an Associate Member of AMINZ.
Membership category: Lay (Law/Moral Reasoning)
Date of appointment: 15 September 2025
Current term expires: 14 September 2029
Cordelia ((Otago), LLM(Hons) and PhD (VUW)), is a Barrister and Solicitor and is currently Associate Health and Disability Commissioner (HDC) – Investigations. She was previously a Specialist Senior Legal Advisor to the HDEC. She took up that position in 2009 after working as a Senior Legal Adviser to the Bioethics Council working at the Ministry for the Environment. Earlier, she was for many years a law lecturer at Wellington Polytechnic and then Massey University at Wellington. She is currently the New Zealand Law Society’s National Course Director of the Legal Executive Programme. Cordelia is the author of the fifth and sixth editions of Forsyth’s Outline of the Law Relating to Trusts Wills Executors & Administrators which is the textbook recommended by the New Zealand Law Society for Estates Law and Practice. The sixth edition was published in 2009.
Membership category: Non-Lay (Intervention Studies)
Date of appointment: 03 March 2025
Current term expires: 02 March 2030
Patries is currently an Associate Professor at the Department of Radiation Therapy, University of Otago, Wellington, and a Senior Research Fellow at the Malaghan Institute. She completed a PhD in cancer cell biology at the Malaghan Institute of Medical Research/Otago University in Wellington (2006), a Master of Philosophy (microbiology) at Waikato University in Hamilton (1984), and a Master of Science (biology) at Nijmegen University (Netherlands) in 1982. Patries conducts cell based biomedical research at the Malaghan Institute as well as clinical trials that investigate better management options for acute side effects caused by radiation therapy in various hospitals in New Zealand and overseas.
She is the Chair of the Animal Ethics Committee at the University of Otago, Wellington, and joined the Central HDEC as a non-lay member in July 2012.
Membership category: Non-Lay (Health/Disability Service Provision)
Date of appointment: 03 March 2025
Current term expires: 02 March 2029
Dr. Andrea Furuya is an experienced immunologist, microbial disease specialist and regulatory expert in diagnostic assay development and compliance. She holds a Ph.D. in Immunology and Microbial Disease from Albany Medical College and has extensive experience in academia, public health, and the medical diagnostics industry. Currently, she serves as the Regulatory and Quality Director at Pictor Ltd., where she leads regulatory compliance initiatives, oversees quality management systems, ensures adherence to ISO 13485 standards and manages compliance for Transitional Facility (TF) with the New Zealand Ministry for Primary Industries (MPI).
Dr. Furuya has previously held academic positions at the State University of New York at Albany (SUNY), Albany College of Pharmacy and the Wadsworth Center at the New York State Department of Health, where she contributed to clinical diagnostics, public health and regulatory reviews. She is a certified Laboratory Director in Diagnostic Immunology and has served as a reviewer for NYS CLEP and as a third-party reviewer for the FDA. Her research expertise spans infectious diseases, immunoassay development, and regulatory compliance in the medical diagnostics field.
Membership category: Non-lay
Date of appointment: 13 July 2025
Current term expires: 12 July 2028
Dr Rebekah Jaung (she/her) is a Public Health Physician based in Tāmaki Makaurau. She completed her PhD in Surgery at the University of Auckland | Waipapa Taumata Rau. Her areas of interest include: racism and anti-racism in health, health equity, and developing spaces for Māori-migrant solidarity within health in Aotearoa.
Membership category: Lay
Date of appointment: 15 September 2025
Current term expires: 14 September 2028
[Bio to come]
