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Professor Nina Hallowell 1957 - 2023

It is with great sadness that we write to let colleagues know that on Wednesday 28th June our dear friend and colleague, Nina Hallowell, died at home in Edinburgh.

Nina will be known to many within the Medical Sociology Community as a regular contributor and previous Med Soc Convenor 2006-2008. Nina was internationally known and respected for her pioneering research into people's experiences and understandings of genetic screening and testing, risk and risk communication and how this affected and shaped their own and familial behaviours, and the relationship between autonomy and responsibility. More recently, her focus moved on to research investigating the social and ethical questions relating to feedback of genomic findings in the context of uncertainty and open-endedness, and to other ethical questions arising out of the increasingly close relationship between genetics research and clinical practice, and data ethics more broadly. 

Nina's own academic career had many twists and turns, described most beautifully in her inaugural Professorial lecture "Solitary, poor, nasty, brutish and short (Hobbes, 1651): My career as a contract researcher" which she presented at Oxford University on May 21st 2022 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jU-rAoXF0tU In her lecture Nina described her career, and some of what follows is taken from that:

Nina completed her first degree at Sterling in Psychology, and, in 1984, went on to undertake an ESRC funded DPhil in Linguistics at Linacre College, Cambridge. She subsequently worked in a variety of institutions, on what were often short-term contracts, including  the Department of Human Communication at De Montfort University, the Centre for Research on Families and Relationships at the University of Cambridge, the Institute of Cancer Research, before taking up a Lectureship at the University of Edinburgh (where she was subsequently promoted to Reader) and, more latterly, a Senior Lectureship Newcastle University. 

In 2016, she moved to the Ethox Centre at the University of Oxford, something she later described as "her life's ambition" describing it as "the most lovely of places to work". There, she co-led a successful EPSRC CDT in Health Data Science, and adored the student cohorts that came through this programme. She became an Official Fellow (Ethics & Values) at Reuben College, where she was proud to influence and build something from the start. She finally, and very belatedly, became Professor of Social and Ethical Aspects of Genomics in 2021, and was able to give her inaugural in person last year, with many more colleagues and friends joining from across the UK and globe.

In her inaugural lecture, Nina reflected on the precarious nature of contract funding which she experienced many times over her 34 year career. Whilst this kind of work had (and continues) to present real challenges which Nina experienced, she also reflected on the positive experiences she had. She spoke with fondness on the connections she had made globally, most notably with her beloved Australia, and through two Brocher Foundation Fellowships. She spoke eloquently about the tenacity needed to keep going with funding ideas, citing the example of her own quest to secure funding for work to look at Decision Making about risk reducing prophylactic surgery for heredity diffuse gastric cancer, which, after three unsuccessful attempts, was finally funded by the Sir Hally Stewart Trust, which resulted in some excellent outputs, of which she was justifiably proud. Towards the end of her inaugural, she commented that during her career she had done what she wanted to do, and been able to have the academic life she chose and for much of this had "lived at the margins" keeping away from academic politics.

As an academic, colleague and friend Nina offered a rare blend of academic brilliance and intellectual integrity and generosity. She was kind and funny and would give her time, wit and wisdom generously. Her research was always cutting-edge and Nina showed a firm and consistent commitment throughout her career to produce outputs which were both scholarly and which had a meaningful impact on clinical practice. She was always very modest about her own achievements and, instead, seemed more interested in supporting and building the confidence and careers of others. Despite relying on short-term contracts for most of her academic career, and facing many periods of job insecurity, Nina was a truly collegiate academic citizen.  She sat on many editorial board (including Sociology of Health & Illness) and funding panels, and did an exceptionally high level of peer-reviewing. She was passionate about supporting the careers of others, especially early career researchers, and many of us have benefited from her thoughtful (and honest!) comments on drafts of papers and grant applications.

During the last 12 months, despite her own failing health and navigating the demands of treatments and hospital regimes, Nina continued to work. She gave her time generously, and provided insightful, at times acerbic, commentary on her own health care experiences. She spent time doing the things she loved, including attending outdoor concerts last summer and seeing friends for as long as she could. She continued to be interested in, and care about, others to the end, and for those of us lucky enough to count her as a friend we value and miss that in equal measure. Nina Hallowell was a brilliant academic, a generous and kind mentor, and a dear friend to many: she will be missed by many people in so many different ways.

Her funeral will be held at Friday 14th July 12pm at Mortonhall Cemetery, Edinburgh. The service will also be streamed live (please get in touch for further information)

Julia Lawton and Cath Exley 5th July 2023


Catherine Exley
Professor of Qualitative Health Research
Dean of Population Health Sciences Institute
Faculty of Medical Sciences
Framlington Place 
Newcastle University 
NE2 4HH
https://www.ncl.ac.uk/medicalsciences/research/groups/profile/catherineexley.html#background

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