Friday 21 August 2020 3:34pm
Emeritus Professor Jennie Connor
Professor Jennie Connor is pleased that the title of Professor Emerita will continue her more than 40-year connection with Otago.
“That title is important to me because it continues my link with current Otago colleagues, and my attachment to Otago that started in 1976 as a teenager at the University. While I may be retired, I am still connected,” she says.
Emeritus Professor Connor retired from Otago in May with an impressive research record in the areas of alcohol epidemiology and policy, injury prevention, and sexual and reproductive health. She has also enjoyed teaching epidemiology and public health at all levels over her career.
While her academic career at Otago started in 2006, Professor Connor’s connection began three decades earlier when she came to Dunedin for just the middle year of her undergraduate degree. Moving in and out of Dunedin a number of times, she graduated with an Otago medical degree in 1983, and Master of Public Health in 1996.
“This is the house where I was born and have lived more than 30 years of my life, off and on. Needless-to-say, it feels like home. I will undoubtedly continue to apply my training and experience to some work from time-to-time, but intend to develop a less focused approach to life.”
She returned to Otago as a staff member in 2006 and four years later was appointed Chair in Preventive and Social Medicine – a role she considers one of the highlights of her career.
“I was honoured be appointed to the position … which had been held by Professor Sir David Skegg for 25 years before he became Vice-Chancellor and then by Prof Charlotte Paul, a friend and mentor.”
Emeritus Professor Connor was also a theme leader in the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study – more commonly known as the Dunedin Study – that won the Prime Minister’s Science Prize in 2016.
Retirement has meant a move back to her “original home” on the outskirts of Auckland.
“This is the house where I was born and have lived more than 30 years of my life, off and on. Needless-to-say, it feels like home. I will undoubtedly continue to apply my training and experience to some work from time-to-time, but intend to develop a less focused approach to life.”
“I will miss the people I have been working with, and among. Although it is relatively easy to keep in touch with the people involved in the same research, there are many colleagues in Preventive and Social Medicine, and the wider university, with whom relationships have grown up in other ways. It is such a rich, stimulating and rewarding environment.
“Having moved out of Dunedin, I miss all of the special things that the city has to offer, and many friends.”