Auditor

Professor Ajit Narayanan graduated from the University of Aston and completed a PhD at the University of Exeter. His research areas are application of artificial intelligence techniques in bioinformatics and systems biology; computational statistics, modeling and simulation; and philosophy of mind/brain, including machine ethics. He has been a member of numerous panels in the United Kingdom (1998-2004) first as part of the Higher Education Funding Councils of England (HEFCE) and of Wales (HEFCW) and then as part of the Quality Assurance Agency (QAA).

Will Dreyer was the Education Officer of the Otago University Students' Association (OUSA) in 2019. During this time he played a significant role in the academic quality assurance process at the University of Otago. He is currently undertaking his Master of Politics at the University of Otago and is the Director of Generation Vote, a non-partisan education programme that teaches civics in high schools.

Dr Sue Walbran is currently the Director, Academic Office at Victoria University of Wellington. She has held roles as Academic Director in the ITP sector and has been involved in quality assurance and quality improvement in education and health for over 20 years. She was a lead developer of the evaluative approach to quality assurance currently used in New Zealand’s non-university sector which is based on on-going systematic self-review.

Professor Lois Surgenor is Associate Dean (Academic) in the Division of Health Sciences at the University of Otago and a Professor in Psychological Medicine.  Professor Surgenor has experience chairing groups accrediting NZ professional programmes leading to registration as a health practitioner, as well as extensive involvement with academic governance committees and academic integrity processes.  

Paula is the Academic Quality and Policy Manager at Lincoln University, and has previously held a variety of managerial and administrative roles over her 27 years in tertiary administration both in the UK and New Zealand.  Paula is part of the University’s Academic Audit Steering Group and is the primary writer for the self-review.

Heather Merrick is Manager, Academic Quality at the University of Auckland.  She has over 15 years’ experience in the sector and has held quality assurance roles at Victoria University of Wellington and Cambridge University.  Heather has had extensive involvement with peer review and academic audit and has participated in or led self-review and post-audit implementation over three audit cycles at the University of Auckland.

Associate Professor Julie Mackey is Dean/Director (Academic Success) in the office of the Deputy Vice Chancellor (Academic) at the University of Canterbury.  Her previous roles at the university have included Dean of Education and Health Sciences in the College of Education, Health and Human Development, and Head of the School of Literacies and Arts in Education. Her academic experience spans initial teacher education and teacher professional development; innovative pedagogies and flexible learning environments; and digital, blended and online learning.

Peter Enderwick is an economist specialising in international business. Currently he is the Professor of International Business at AUT University. Between 1988 and 2004 he was Professor of International Management at the University of Waikato. He has held visiting positions at the Helsinki School of Economics and Business, Finland; the University of South Australia, Adelaide; Thammasat Business School Bangkok; and the Centre for International Business University of Leeds UK. He has been a course adviser to the Open University of Hong Kong and is the author of nine books and published over 100 journal articles and book chapters. His research interests are globalisation and labour, large emerging markets such as China and India and global factory systems.

Tim Cooper is Professor of the History of Christianity at the University of Otago, where he has been teaching since 2005. In 2021, he received the Award for Sustained Excellence in Tertiary Teaching from Ako Aotearoa. His research expertise lies in seventeenth-century British religious history.  Within his university he has served as Associate Dean (Academic) in the Division of Humanities and he is currently the Head of its School of Arts.  In his capacity as its representative on CUAP, Associate Professor Cooper sits on the University of Otago’s Board of Graduate Studies and Board of Undergraduate Studies, as well as its Quality Advancement Committee.  

Emeritus Professor Debbie Clayton has worked in the university and government sectors and is currently a higher education consultant specialising in accreditation, quality assurance systems and international education.  She is an active reviewer, auditor and consultant with higher education accreditation and quality assurance agencies in Oman, Hong Kong, Papua New Guinea, New Zealand and Australia as well as undertaking the role of Independent Chair of the Accreditation Committee for the Prevocational Medical Accreditation for the state of Queensland. She is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors and has held, or currently holds, directorships in not-for-profit and for-profit companies and associations related to education. 

In June, 2021 she was made a Member of the Order or Australia for significant service to tertiary education and to international study programs.