Rate My Professor Andrea McMillan

Andrea McMillan serves as the Director of Health, Safety and Wellbeing in the Office of the Chief Operating Officer at the University of Otago. She joined the university in 2001 as Head of Health and Safety Compliance, progressing to her current leadership role. Prior to Otago, McMillan worked as a Health and Safety Manager at Cadbury, and from 1994 to 2000 as a General Workplace Inspector and Occupational Health Nurse for the Department of Labour. Her career emphasizes practical experience in occupational health nursing, workplace inspections, safety management, and compliance across industries.

McMillan has led significant developments in the university's health and safety framework, including restructuring the Compliance team into specialized units: Health and Safety (managed by Nevan Trotter with advisers for campuses, construction, diving, boating, and labs), Occupational Health and Wellbeing (coordinated by Judy Currie, evolving from the Healthy University Advisory Group), Animal Welfare (led by Dr Alyssa Calder), and Biological Compliance. These changes reflect the university's complex risk profile. During the COVID-19 pandemic, she directed her team's response, utilizing prior knowledge from SARS, bird flu, and swine flu outbreaks to create university-wide, department-specific, and area-tailored guidelines for all alert levels, overseeing lab rosters (e.g., 10-person limits at Level 3), campus access, and addressing countless queries from staff and students through daily coordination. McMillan remains the key contact for health and safety legislation, manager responsibilities and training, departmental health and safety officers, electrical safety, cleaning and custodial hazards, occupational health monitoring, and more. Her office is at 51 Clyde Street, Dunedin; telephone +64 3 479 7380; mobile +64 27 227 7796.