Full name: Northern B Health and Disability Ethics Committee
Short name: Northern B HDEC
Abbreviation: NTB
OHRP(external link) ref: IRB00008715
Please note it is inappropriate to contact committee members directly regarding HDEC matters.
Download Northern B Terms of Reference [DOCX, 42 KB]
No meetings were postponed or cancelled due to inability to make quorum.
Membership category: Lay (Ethical and Moral Reasoning)
Date of appointment: 13 August 2021
Current term expires: 16 August 2024
Kate was formerly the Executive Secretary of the AUT Ethics Committee. Prior to this, she worked as a research Contracts Manager for Uniservices Ltd in the University of Auckland's School of Population Health, was Secretary for the University of Auckland's Human Participants Ethics Committee, and the Biological Safety Committee. She has a Master of Arts in philosophy and a Post Graduate Diploma in business. She was on the Working Party of the National Ethics Advisory Commitee's National Ethical Standards, and Royal Society Te Aparangi's Code of Professional Standards and Ethics. She is a member of the Data Ethics Advisory Group (NZ Stats).
Membership category: Lay (Consumer/Community Perspective)
Date of appointment: July 2022
Current term expires: July 2025
Ewe Leong is a board member of Altus Enterprises Inc and Will & Able Limited. Both organisations are not for profit charities which provide employment to people with disabilities. He is a partner of Anthony Harper, Lawyers and has been practising corporate and commercial law since 1987.
Membership category: Non-Lay (Intervention/Observational Studies)
Date of appointment: 13 August 2021
Current term expires: 16 August 2024
Leesa is the Project Manager for the Centre for Cancer Research at University of Auckland. Most recently she has held roles in Planning Funding and Outcomes, at various Auckland DHBs and regionally: as Programme Manager for Metro Auckland Data Sharing and Lead for Regional Data Governance redesign, Business Manager for Planning, Funding and Outcomes at Waitemata and Auckland DHBs and Project Manager of System Level Measures, a Primary Care population health focused quality improvement programme.
She has an interest in ethics which began with the role of Ethics Coordinator at the Health Research Council, and continued with her close relationship with the Ethics Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology during her time at Fertility Associates. Shortly after this, she was appointed to the Northern B HDEC (2015) and was reappointed for a further three years in 2021. She sat as Chair of the University of Auckland Human Participants Ethics Committee B for two years (2019-21). She has previously worked as a Business Manager in Primary Care and has experience working in clinical quality, improvement and audit related roles, including Quality Lead at Waitemata DHB and Clinical Audit Manager at St John, Process Manager and Extended Storage Co-ordinator at Fertility Associates, and (quality improvement) Data Evaluator at Counties Manukau Health. In her early career, she worked in cardiovascular and respiratory clinical research and was a Research Fellow in Neuropsychology. She completed a Post Graduate Diploma in Quality Systems at Massey in 2019 and has a Masters and a Bachelor’s degree in (healthcare related) Sociology from the University of Auckland.
Membership category: Non-Lay (Intervention/Observational Studies)
Date of appointment: 13 August 2021
Current term expires: 16 August 2024
Barry has worked in suicide prevention and mental wellbeing promotion for 35 years at the local, national and international levels. He has been a respected leader and thinker in the field, often implementing pioneer and innovative initiatives in emerging programme areas or target populations. He led the first national response to youth suicide in New Zealand in the late 1980s. He has sat on numerous government advisory groups, written national guidelines, undertaken research and established evaluation and outcome measures for national and local programmes. He has always had a long term interest in the application of ethical practice and research.
As a health sociologist and public health practitioner, Barry has always been committed to addressing the social and cultural determinants and in suicide and mental wellbeing and therole of social, economic and cultural disparities and inequities in indigenous populations and marginalised people. He was known for his work on suicide in men, LGBTTIQA+ communities, and those living with a mental illness. He also brings his insights from his own lived experience of mental illness.
In 2016, Barry was awarded the NSW Mental Health Commissioner Award in recognition of his outstanding contribution to mental wellbeing and suicide prevention. After a number of years overseas, Barry is back in New Zealand and is passionate about actively contributing to building the knowledge base, competence, and capability within our country to enhance wellbeing and addressing the unacceptably high rate of suicide in the country.
Membership category: Lay (Law)
Date of appointment: December 2021
Current term expires: December 2024
Alice is a legal professional with a range of experience dealing with Māori legal issues.
Alice is currently employed at Manaia Legal, where she has represented a range of Māori trusts, co-governance and post-settlement governance entities. Some of her previous roles include Solicitor at Auckland Council, Solicitor at Pacific Law and Legal Assistant at Justice Chambers.
Alice's governance experiences include being a member and Secretary of the Aotearoa New Zealand Human Rights Lawyers’ Association, and a collective member of Wellington Women’s Refuge.
Membership category: Non-Lay (Intervention Studies)
Date of appointment: July 2022
Current term expires: July 2025
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 Perspective)
Date of appointment: July 2022
Current term expires: July 2025
Ko Te Arawa te waka
Ko Tarawera te maunga
Ko Te awa o te atua te awa
Ko Rangitihi te marae
Ko Ngāti Rangitihi raua ko Ngāti Tuwharetoa ki Kawerau ngā iwi
Ko Rangiaohia te wharenui
Ko Maakere Marr tōku ingoa
Maakere is currently contracted to the Social Work Registration Board as an assessor/kaiarotake, to assess the competency of (Section 13) Experience Pathway Applications. Prior to beginning this role in early 2022, Maakere had worked 14 years in Mental Health and Disability Services, within DHB's, both here in Aotearoa and Tasmania, Australia. Her role as a senior Social Worker and Mental Health clinician, was at the coal-face of community crisis teams, dealing with at risk, vulnerable tangata whaiora and their whānau.
Maakere currently lives in Rotorua, which brings her back to her Te Arawa mana whenua, closer to her whānau, hapu, iwi and marae.
Tēnā koutou katoa
Membership category: Non-Lay (Provision of healthcare and disability services)
Date of appointment: July 2022
Current term expires: July 2025
Amber is a registered Dietitian and has a PhD in Human Nutrition. She currently works as a Research Fellow at Te Whatu Ora – Capital, Coast and Hutt Valley District. She has 16 years experience in research in the fields of Diabetes, Obesity, Endocrine and Nutrition interventions. She has experience in both Sponsored and Investigator led trials and also tissue banks. She is currently the manager of the Centre for Endocrine, Diabetes and Obesity Research Tissue Bank in Wellington. Amber also works for Otago University on specific research projects. Amber has an interest in Ethics for a New Zealand context including data and tissue management.
