Rate My Professor Alastair Campbell

Professor Alastair V. Campbell held a Personal Chair in Biomedical Ethics and served as Director of the Bioethics Research Centre at the University of Otago from 1990 to 1996. He previously visited as a professor at Otago Medical School in 1986/87. The Bioethics Centre, established in 1988 within the Division of Health Sciences, developed under his leadership into a major resource for teaching, research, consultancy, and public education in bioethics. Campbell earned his MA in philosophy with first-class honours and BD from the University of Edinburgh, and ThD from the San Francisco Theological Seminary and the Graduate Theological Union via a Harkness Fellowship. His early career featured roles as Associate Chaplain at the University of Edinburgh (1964–1969), part-time lecturer in ethics at the Royal College of Nursing, Scotland (1966–1972), and joint secretary of the Edinburgh Medical Group, precursor to the Society for the Study of Medical Ethics.

Campbell was the founding editor of the Journal of Medical Ethics from 1975 to 1980. His research specializations encompass bioethics, medical ethics, biomedical ethics, the body in bioethics, informed consent, neuroethics, and healthcare decision-making involving family. Key publications include Medical Ethics, co-authored with Grant Gillett and Gareth Jones (Oxford University Press, 1989, with later editions), The Body in Bioethics (Routledge-Cavendish, 2009), and Defining Core Health Services: The New Zealand Experience (Bioethics, 1995). He delivered the presidential address to the International Association of Bioethics in 1998 and played founding roles in bioethics centres at the University of Bristol, University of Otago, and National University of Singapore. Major awards include the Henry K. Beecher Award from The Hastings Center (1999), election as Fellow of the Royal Society of Edinburgh (2011), and the Public Service Medal from the Singaporean Government (2018). The Alastair Campbell Fellowship at the University of Otago honours his contributions.