Professor Nina Hallowell. 4th November 1957 – 28th June 2023.
It is with great sadness that we have learnt of the death of Nina Hallowell.
In 1994 Nina was appointed as a research associate in the Centre for Family Research to work on an MRC funded research project on families and genetic disorders. She became a key member of our research team, proving to be a most effective and imaginative researcher. She played a particularly significant part in developing the theoretical framework which underpinned the research and in elaborating the methods for the analysis of the qualitative data we collected. She drafted the lions’ share of the papers that arose from the work. Her paper, ‘Understanding life’s lottery’, was particularly noteworthy, providing a critical review of the rather confused area of research on risk perception and awareness in the genetic context. She brought some order to the field and produced a number of theoretical solutions to old puzzles. Her papers have been widely cited.
Later she completed her own project on the psychological implications of oophorectomy for women with a family history of breast cancer, addressing a growing clinical and ethical problem.
Following the successful completion of this research, Dr Hallowell decided to pursue her growing interest in biomedical ethics, serving on both the Cambridge Psychology Research Ethics Committee and the local NHS Multicentre Research Ethics Committee. Later she completed the MA course in Medical Ethics and Law at Kings College, London. At that point her formal link with the Centre ended, though informal links remained. She has been a grant holder with others here on a Wellcome Trust funded project.
We very much wished that she could have remained as a member of the Centre. Sadly, at that time we were unable to secure the necessary funding from the University to offer her a tenured position. She was very much missed at the Centre as a leading researcher and a valued and stimulating colleague.
Martin Richards.