For the past month, Associate Professor Diana Bowman from Arizona State University (ASU) has been visiting the UNE School of Law. Diana, who is a proud Aussie, did her undergraduate degrees in law and science at Monash University. She then completed her PhD on ‘A Small Matter of Regulation: The Emerging Issue of Nanotechnology.’
Diana is well regarded across the world and is currently acting as a consultant for the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) on a project looking at gene editing for advanced therapeutics. Her CV is enough to make the most successful professional jealous.
Diana is the sort of person who identifies a problem and then uses her critical thinking skills to come up with a solution. When Diana moved to Phoenix, Arizona, she was surprised to realise that most households had pools, but very few had any fencing or appropriate barriers around them to protect children from drowning. Despite local ordinances requiring pools to be appropriately fenced. Diana’s unscientific analysis of household pools in Phoenix suggested that less than 10% of households had barriers, such as fencing, that would meet the standard required in the ordinances. A quick review of the drowning statistics for the state showed that drowning was the leading (non medical) cause of death for 1-4 year olds; Arizona has the second highest drowning rate in the country, following only Florida. For this age group drowning occurs in backyard pools and spas. The main reason given for this lack of appropriate fencing can be put down, at least in part, to individual liberty, lack of awareness, and lack of enforcement. For others it is just a matter that fences “are plain ugly”.
Aside from the heartbreaking personal impact of losing children to drowning, this lack of compliance, and lack of best-practice regulation, also has significant economic impacts on the state. You see, it is very expensive to provide medical and practical care for children who are non-fatally injured from drowning. For every one fatal drowning there shall be five non-fatal drowning that requires treatment in an emergency department. Some of these children will sustain life-changing injuries as a result of the submersion incident.
Diana was convinced she had to do something about this problem and she approached ASU’s Head Swim Coach, Coach Bob Bowman – who just happens to be the US Olympic coach and Michael Phelps’s personal coach, to work with her on raising awareness about this issue. Diana also reached out to Phoenix Children’s Hospital, the only level 1 children’s trauma hospital in the state, in order to bring their expertise on drowning prevention into the partnership. This is just one example of how Diana uses her expertise and credibility to make significant social and legal changes.
Tiffaney Isaacson (Phoenix Children’s Hospital), Sparky and Diana.
As you can imagine, Diana’s professional expertise is very technical, but essentially she helps advise on the ‘scientific, legal, regulatory and societal challenges’ of cutting edge technologies such as human gene editing (using tools such as CRISPR/Cas9) for advanced therapeutics. Put simply, Diana works with an interdisciplinary group of experts from around the world, to help governments and policy makers develop policies and approaches to encourage the development of innovation solutions for individuals with, for example, serious health challenges such as genetic diseases.
Each year, Diana spends her American summer working on her cutting edge research. This year, she chose to spend this precious time at the UNE School of Law.
Diana is working with Professor Mark Perry on emerging technologies. Mark is advising Diana on IP issues associated with, for example, the Internet of Things and nanotechnology-drugs. Emerging technologies and their products bring with them a raft of complex intellectual property issues which need to be considered alongside their development in order to prevent patent thickets and the overbroad patenting (which can slow down the development of a technology).
She has also met with Associate Professor Amanda Kennedy and her colleagues from UNSW and Griffith University who are currently working on an ARC-funded project exploring the governance of water and coal seam gas. Diana has linked the research team with other colleagues at ASU, which has laid the foundations for a research workshop to be held in early 2018 on the governance of unconventional gas and water.
Diana is loving her time in Armidale. Diana’s three year old daughter, Zara, is amazed by the different climate in Armidale as opposed to the desert environment in which Phoenix sits. Think roadrunners and bobcats. And giant saguaro cactus. In particular, Zara likes playing in the puddles the rain creates. Despite the recent flooding in Arizona, rain is not a common occurrence in the Sonoran desert in which Phoenix sits.
Diana and her small family have also been enjoying the community nature of both the UNE School of Law, TG’s Child Care and Armidale in general. Diana and her family have visited the iconic Dangar’s Falls and the coastal town of Coffs Harbour. She is also pleased Zara is starting to recognise Australian animals, such as kangaroos and koalas, and can name just about every Australian animal that has a pouch.
Diana loves coffee, and in her opinion, Era Espresso makes the best coffee in Armidale! We have no doubt the coffee from Era Espresso will only make Diana more productive and inspired to continue her amazing lifesaving work!
