Science Advisory Board

Professor John W. Funder (Chair)

Professor John Funder was born in Adelaide and educated at Melbourne University. He has been President of the Australian Society for Medical Research (1979) and the Endocrine Society of Australia (1984), and chairman of the International Society for Endocrinology (1996-2000). In 1990 he resigned as a Senior Principal Research Fellow of the National Health and Medical Research Council to become Director of the Baker Medical Research Institute (1990-2001).

John was the first non-North American to be elected to Council of the Endocrine Society, and has been an invited speaker at the International Congress of Endocrinology, the International Congress of Clinical Chemistry, the International Society for Hypertension, the International Society for Cardiovascular Endocrinology, and at national meetings of the Australian, American, British, Italian, Japanese, Argentinian, Brazilian, and Turkish Endocrine Societies. He has published over 500 papers, and is on the Editorial Board of eleven international journals.

Currently he is a Senior Fellow at Prince Henry’s Institute of Medical Research at Monash Medical Centre and a Professorial Fellow at the Centre for Neuroscience at University of Melbourne, and divides his time between a series of scientific collaborations, consulting to academia and consulting for the pharmaceutical and philanthropic sectors. He has chaired reviews of research institutes in Brisbane, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth, Canberra and Auckland. He is a member of the Board of the Garnett Passe and Rodney Williams Memorial Foundation, the P3 panel of Innovation Australia, the Harold Mitchell Foundation, the Finkel Foundation, and the Grattan Institute.

He was appointed an Officer of the Order of Australia in 1998.

(Photograph courtesy of the Grattan Institute)

Professor Sir Patrick Bateson

Professor Sir Patrick Bateson is Emeritus Professor of Ethology, the biological study of behaviour, at the University of Cambridge. He was Provost of King's College, Cambridge from 1988 to 2003. He was formerly Director of the Sub-Department of Animal Behaviour at Cambridge and later Head of the Department of Zoology. He was Vice-Chairman of the Museums and Galleries Commission and is President of the Zoological Society of London. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of London in 1983 and became its Biological Secretary and Vice-President in 1998 (retiring in 2003).

Pat's research is on the behavioural development of animals, and much of his scientific career has been concerned with bridging the gap between the studies of behaviour and those of underlying mechanisms, focusing on the process of imprinting in birds. He has also carried out research on behavioural development in mammals, and has supervised field projects on mammals in East Africa.

He has written more than 250 scientific papers and book chapters on imprinting in birds, the development of play in cats, the development and evolution of behaviour, neural mechanisms of learning, and the conceptual and methodological issues in the study of behaviour and animal welfare. He has also written articles on co-operation, the ethics of using animals in research, and the hunting of red deer with hounds.

Dr John R. G. Challis

Dr John Challis is President and CEO of the Michael Smith Foundation for Health Research in Vancouver and is a University Professor in the Departments of Physiology, Medicine, and Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the University of Toronto. He is an Adjunct Senior Investigator of the Agency for Science, Technology and Research (A*STAR) Singapore, an Adjunct Professor in the Department of OB-GYN at University of Western Australia, Professor (Part-time) at the University of Manchester, and an Affiliate Scientist at the Samuel Lunenfeld Research Institute at Mount Sinai Hospital. He served as Vice-President, Research and Associate Provost of the University of Toronto from May 2003 to June 2007. He was formerly the Scientific Director of the Canadian Institutes for Health Research (CIHR) Institute of Human Development, Child and Youth Health. He is also a past Chair of the Department of Physiology at the University of Toronto.

In recent years, John has served as Chair of the Canadian Investigators in Reproduction, Chair of the Fetal Physiology Commission of the International Union of Physiological Societies, and Chair of the International Council on the Fetal Origins of Adult Disease. He is also a past President of the Society for Gynecologic Investigation, the Physiological Society of Canada, and the Perinatal Research Society. He has served as a member of the Board of the Ontario Science Centre, the Board of MaRS, the Ontario Health Research Alliance (OHRA) and the Governing Council of the University of Toronto, and on the Boards of the John Patrick Professorship (University of Western Ontario) and the Liggins Institute (The University of Auckland).

John has published more than 500 scientific papers and articles. His work has been cited more than 11,000 times, with an H factor of 55. He has been an Editorial Board member of leading journals in the fields of endocrinology and obstetrics, including Endocrinology, J. Mol. Endocrinology, J. Endocrinology, Placenta, Reproductive Sciences and Reviews in Reproduction.

(Photograph courtesy of the Royal Canadian Institute)

Professor Sir Peter D. Gluckman

Professor Sir Peter Gluckman is one of New Zealand's most distinguished scientists. He was honoured by the Queen in 1997 with the Award of Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, and made a Distinguished Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit in 2008 for services to medicine. He was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society (London) in 2001, a foreign member of the Institute of Medicine of the US National Academy of Sciences in 2004, and a Fellow of the Academy of Medical Sciences (UK) in 2006. He received New Zealand's highest science award, the Rutherford Medal, in 2001. He is the recipient of numerous international awards, including the 2008 Nuffield medal from the Royal Society of Medicine (UK).

Peter's research encompasses paediatric endocrinology, the developmental origins of health and disease, the evolutionary-developmental biology interface, and evolutionary medicine. He has published over 500 scientific papers, reviews and book chapters, and is an inventor on over 25 families of patents. He is editor of eight books, and has co-authored three textbooks, including the first on evolutionary medicine. He is a national and international advocate for science, and promotes the translation of discoveries in biomedical research into improvements in long term health outcomes. His work with organisations such as the World Health Organization has brought growing recognition of the importance of a healthy start to life. He is passionate about communicating a better understanding of science in schools and the wider community.

In 2009 Peter was appointed as the inaugural Chief Science Advisor to the Prime Minister, and is responsible for providing independent advice to the Prime Minister on scientific matters. Prior to taking on this role, he was founding Director of the NRCGD and founding Director of the Liggins Institute.

Professor Mark A. Hanson

Professor Mark Hanson was educated at St Johns College, Oxford, graduating with an MA followed by a D.Phil in Physiology. He has held numerous posts, most recently Professor of Fetal and Neonatal Physiology at University College London, before moving to the University of Southampton in 2000 to direct the Division of Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and to establish the Institute of Developmental Sciences, which he also directs. In 2002 he was made a British Heart Foundation Professor of Cardiovascular Science. He is an Honorary Fellow of the Royal College of Obstetricians and Gynaecologists and a Fellow of the Royal Society of Medicine.

Mark has served on many committees, including grant awarding panels of the Wellcome Trust, British Heart Foundation and Wellbeing, and the editorial boards of several journals. He served on the Royal College of Obstetricians & Gynaecologists Academic Committee, was a Member of the Visiting Group for the Rowett Institute, and was on the Reviewing Panel for Canadian Institutes of Health Research (CIHR) for "Healthy Pregnancy for Great Life Beginnings".

Mark was a founder member of the International Society for Developmental Origins of Health and Disease and is currently President of that Society.

Mark has edited many books. His first was The Fetal and Neonatal Brain Stem (CUP) in 1991, followed by the 4-volume series The Fetus and Neonate - Physiology and Clinical Applications. Mark co-edited the volume The Newborn Brain (CUP), which is now in its second edition. With Peter Gluckman he co-edited the volume Developmental Origins of Health and Disease (CUP), and together they have written two popular science books — The Fetal Matrix (CUP) and Mismatch – the lifestyle diseases timebomb (OUP). Mark has also written over 300 papers and reviews, and has featured in a range of newspaper and magazine articles, and on national TV and radio. He frequently speaks on issues relating to human development in a popular science setting.