Injury Prevention and Safety Promotion

Dr Nancy Stout

Dr Nancy Stout is the Director of the Division of Safety Research, National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health. She joined NIOSH in 1985 and has held various scientific and managerial positions with the NIOSH Division of Safety Research, primarily conducting and directing surveillance and epidemiologic research of occupational injuries. She became Director of the division in 1998. She has bachelor’s and master’s degrees in sociology and a doctorate in quantitative methods from West Virginia University, where she was also on the research faculty before joining NIOSH. She has published extensively on occupational injury research and prevention.

Mr Bruce Esplin

Bruce Esplin has more than twenty years experience in the emergency management sector. He was appointed Victoria’s first Emergency Services Commissioner in June 2000. The commissioner provides a conjugate for communities to contribute to the planning and policy of the way emergencies are managed.

Bruce is an advocate for an inclusive approach to emergency management and encourages continuous dialogue between community, government departments, agencies and organisations to lead the way in sector standards. Bruce has played a central role in the whole of government response to many major emergencies in Victoria including bushfires, gas explosions, extreme storms and floods, and critical infrastructure failure. He has conducted a number of independent, highly sensitive inquiries into the activities of government agencies and the appropriateness of the State’s emergency management arrangements.

Her Honour Judge Jennifer Coate

Her Honour initially worked for four years as a teacher in Victoria’s primary schools and also completed an Arts degree at Monash University majoring in Linguistics and English Literature. After teaching and travelling theworld, she returned to complete a Law Degree at Monash University.

After completing her Articles, Her Honour worked as an employee solicitor and later entered a partnership practising in Fitzroy and East Melbourne in family law, criminal law, crimes compensation and Children’s Court work. She then worked as a duty lawyer for the Legal Aid Commission, then in Policy and Research in the Attorney-General’s Department and was appointed as a Magistrate in March 1992.

In 2000, Her Honour was appointed as a judge of the County Court and the first President of the Children’s Court of Victoria. Her Honour commenced sitting at the County Court on a full time basis in April 2006 and was appointed as the State Coroner on November 2007.

Professor Stephen Cordner

Stephen Cordner graduated in Medicine from The University of Melbourne in 1977. In 1981 he took up an appointment as Lecturer, and later Senior Lecturer, in Forensic Medicine at Guy’s Hospital in London. During this period he became a Fellow of the Royal College of Pathologists of Australasia and gained his membership of the Royal College of Pathologists of Great Britain.

Stephen was appointed Foundation Professor of Forensic Medicine at Monash University and Foundation Director of the Victorian Institute of Forensic Medicine in 1987. In more recent years, Stephen has developed his interest in the intersection of Forensic Medicine and Human Rights. He has been delighted that in recent years the Institute and the Victorian State Coroners Office have been able to help identify and clarify opportunities for death and injury prevention.

Professor Cordner was recently awarded Member (AM) of the Order of Australia for service to forensic medicine, particularly as a contributor to the development of forensic pathology in Australia and internationally.

Professor Arie Frieberg

Arie Freiberg was appointed as Dean of the Faculty Law at Monash University in January 2004. Prior to taking up this position, he was Dean of the Faculty of Arts at the University of Melbourne in 2003. He was appointed to the Foundation Chair of Criminology at the University of Melbourne in January 1991 where he served as Head of the Department of Criminology between January 1992 and June 2002.

He graduated from the University of Melbourne with an honours degree in Law and a Diploma in Criminology in 1972 and holds a Master of Laws degree from Monash University. He was awarded the degree of Doctor of Laws by the University of Melbourne in 2001 and is a fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia, the Australian Academy of Law and holds an Adjunct Faculty appointment in the Australian and New Zealand School of Government. Between 1996 and 1998 he was President of the Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology. He is currently a member of the Council of the Australian Institute of Judicial Administration and Chair of the Victorian Sentencing Advisory Council.

For the affirmative

Team captain: Professor Mohamed Seedat

Mohamed Seedat is a professor in the College of Human Sciences at University of South Africa. He is currently Director of the Institute for Social and Health Sciences, a WHO Collaborating Centre for Violence and Injury Prevention Research and Training. He also heads the National Presidential Lead Programme on Crime, Violence and Injury in South Africa, a joint collaboration between the Medical Research Council and the University of South Africa. Mohamed Seedat is also the Editor-in-Chief of African Safety Promotion: A Journal of Injury and Violence Prevention

Dr Margie Peden
Dr Peden is currently the Coordinator of the Unintentional Injury Prevention Team (UIP) of the Department of Violence and Injury Prevention and Disability (VIP). She co-ordinates work in the areas
of unintentional injury prevention (focused mainly on road safety), injury surveillance/surveys, child injury prevention and alcoholrelated injuries. She is the executive editor of the World report on road traffic injury prevention which was launched on World Health Day 2004 and is currently leading the development of the World report on child injury prevention and the Global status report on
road safety.

Dr Ali Dhansay
Dr Ali Dhansay is currently the Vice President Research for the South African Medical Research Council. Doctor Muhammad Ali Dhansay qualified in Medicine at the University of Cape Town in 1977. After his internship, and a senior houseman appointment in paediatrics, he served as Medical Officer at an ambulatory care hospital in an impoverished area of Cape Town. He trained as a specialist in paediatrics, registering with the College of Medicine of South Africa in 1985, and also obtained a Diploma in Child Health. The MRC offered him a permanent position as specialist scientist (medical),
which brought a medical and health perspective to the nutrition work of the NRIND. He reached the level of Chief Specialist Scientist and was appointed Director of the MRC’s Nutritional Intervention Research Unit in 2004.

For the negative

Team captain: Professor Gordon Smith

Professor Gordon Smith has a current appointment with the department of Epidemiology and Preventive Medicine at the University of Maryland , and a 25 year history in injury research employment that includes the Centres for Disease Control, the Johns Hopkins Bloomberg School of Public Health and the Harvard School of Public Health. has held appointments over his career in may of the distinguished. Professor Smith has published extensively across a range of injury research interests, with a particular focus on workplace and alcohol related injuries.

Dr Lois Fingerhut
Lois A Fingerhut is the chair of the International Collaborative Effort (ICE) on injury statistics and has recently retired from the position of special assistant for injury epidemiology in the Office of Analysis,
Epidemiology, and Health Promotion at the National Center for health Statistics, CDC, where she had worked since 1977. She received a master’s degree in demography in 1975 from Georgetown University. Her injury research generally includes analyses of national mortality and morbidity databases.

Mrs Yvette Holder
Mrs. Holder has been a practicing biostatistician for the past 33 years, and an epidemiologist for the past 25 years. An employee of the Pan American Health Organization for 20 years, and later of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention for two years, Mrs. Holder has worked in the area of injury surveillance and prevention, starting first with traffic injury epidemiology in the English and Dutch-speaking Caribbean.

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