Rate My Professor Fieke Neuman

Fieke Neuman serves as the Teaching Laboratory Manager in the Department of Anatomy at the University of Otago, part of the Faculty of Biomedical Sciences. With qualifications including a BSc in Anatomy and a Diploma of Fashion, she brings a distinctive blend of scientific knowledge and creative expertise to her role. Neuman joined the University around 1995 as a technician in the Department of Medicine, progressing through various positions in Anatomy such as research technician, Anatomy Museum Curator, and one of the Department's Technical Managers. Following a short break, she returned as an Anatomy laboratory class developer and now oversees the undergraduate teaching laboratories.

Neuman is widely recognized for developing innovative fabric-based teaching models that provide students with interactive, three-dimensional understandings of anatomical structures. Her creations, such as the 'Peritoneum in a Box' to demonstrate abdominal peritoneum layers, the 'Burlesque Brain' illustrating brain anatomy with layered fabrics and metals, and string art models tracing spinal neural tracts, utilize materials like pink organza for meninges and suede-like fabrics for dura to replicate tissue flexibility. These models facilitate hands-on learning, and their patterns are freely shared under a Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike license through the Department of Anatomy's teaching models wiki. Before her university career, Neuman excelled as a fashion designer, securing the Menswear category win at the 1998 Smokefree Fashion Design Awards and undertaking an Antarctic Arts Fellowship in 2002 while managing a fashion business. Her scholarly contributions include co-authoring the journal article 'The Rima Rau burial cave, Atiu, Cook Islands' in the Journal of Island & Coastal Archaeology (2016), as well as conference proceedings on anatomy teaching methods, student preparedness for dissections, and the history of the Department's histology collection. In 2016, she was honored with the University of Otago General Staff Award for her 21 years of dedicated service to teaching support.