HIAS Bridges Distinguished 2025

Mandy Ryan Emeritus Professor, Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), University of Aberdeen (Scotland)

専攻:Health Economics

任期: 2025年4月1日～2028年3月31日
2025年度滞在期間: TBD

●自己紹介

Mandy is Emeritus Professor at the Health Economics Research Unit (HERU) at the University of Aberdeen (Scotland). Her research has focused on developing methods of valuation in health economics that go beyond clinical outcomes, taking a person centred approach. Mandy introduced discrete choice experiments (DCEs) into health economics and has worked with academics, government and the pharmaceutical industry in applying this approach to take account of patient and community preferences in the evaluation of health care interventions.

●最近興味のあるトピックをお知らせください。

Exploring the applications of discrete choice experiments in challenging areas and testing the external validity of the method.

●研究をしていて楽しいと思うことはどんなことですか？

Working with students and early career researchers to challenge and push forward health economics.

●ご自身にとって「研究」とは？（一言で表すと。）

Using rigorous health economic methods to improve health and well-being of populations across the globe.

●研究者になったきっかけを教えてください。

I enjoyed studying Health Economics at University, seeing it as the caring side of Economics. But I disagreed with the standard definitions of benefit (always clinical in nature) so wanted to explore this. My PhD focused on developing economic methods to take a person centred approach to evaluation… and the rest is history.

●若手研究者へのメッセージ

Keep challenging! And enjoy, it is a privilege to work in academia.

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

専攻:法律

任期: 2025年1月1日～2027年12月31日

2024年度滞在期間: 2025年1月14日～2025年2月28日

●自己紹介

I am a professor of law at Cambridge University. My Ph.D. was in labour law, and that continues to be my main interest, but I also teach and research in private law and company law. I am the director of an interdisciplinary research unit which brings together social scientists from several fields. I have collaborated with economists and sociologists in empirical studies which have both a quantitative and a qualitative dimension. Recently I have been researching the relationship between law and artificial intelligence, which is an exciting but also challenging new field.

●最近興味のあるトピックをお知らせください。

Currently, I am researching the implications for law of AI. In this fast-moving field my main concern is the study how legal rules can be represented as data and then analysed using machine leaning and related computational techniques. I am interested in exploring the statistical foundations of machine learning and in how statistics as a field understands causality, which may help us to understand how law approaches the same set of issues. I am interested in exploring how a data-led approach to legal analysis can help us understand the role law plays in constituting economic institutions and behaviour, in labour and other markets.

●研究をしていて楽しいと思うことはどんなことですか？

The opportunity to be creative and to push forward knowledge and understandings is what attracts people to research, I think. Academic researchersa are fortunate to be able to choose the topics they work on much of the time, although their work can also be channeled by by funding bodies, and should respond to society’s needs. In my research I generally work in a team, often with specialists from other disciplines, and this can be especially rewarding, although it can require a lot of work and also patience!

●ご自身にとって「研究」とは？（一言で表すと。）

Finding out new things.

●研究者になったきっかけを教えてください。

The questions I had about my original field, labour law, which I didn’t feel were fully answered by the then state of the art. Also, the example of my mentors.

●若手研究者へのメッセージ

Do not be discouraged if you feel that your fellow researchers don’t always understand you or don’t seem to think that your field or approach are interesting. This probably means that you are on the track to finding out something really important!

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

専攻:社会科学、保健

任期: 2024年4月1日～2025年3月31日

2024年度滞在期間: 2024年12月2日～2024年12月31日

●自己紹介

Professor Maria Lohan is Chair in Social Science and Health and UNESCO Chair in Gender Equality at the School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast. She is also Distinguished Visiting Professor at Hitotsubashi Institute for Advanced Studies (HIAS) at Hitotsubashi University, Tokyo Japan.
Professor Lohan’s research focuses on sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) and gender equality.
Within this field Professor Lohan has advanced a focus on engaging men and boys in fostering SRHR for women and girls, as well as for men/boys. She has focussed on achieving this through co-designing, implementing and evaluating relationship and sexuality education (in schools and in prison settings). This work has a multi-country focus in the UK, Ireland, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. It has included the largest randomised controlled trial ever of a relationship and sexuality education programme and the first trial to include a prospective health economic evaluation.
Professor Lohan works as a consultant to the World Health Organization where she has led systematic reviews of the global evidence on male engagement in SRHR and gender equality. Following compilation of the evidence, Professor Lohan was commissioned by WHO to lead an international team to conduct a global priority setting exercise on ‘Masculinities and Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights’. The results were presented to international ministries at the United Nations International Conference on Population and Development in New York 2024.
Professor Lohan also works as a consultant to UNESCO and was commissioned by UNESCO in 2023 to compile an overview of the systematic review evidence on comprehensive sexuality education globally. She is a partner in the UNFPA/UNESCO Global Partnership Forum on Comprehensive Sexuality Education. UNESCO recently published a feature interview with Maria on this work.
Professor Lohan has worked closely with policy makers in the UK and Ireland and convened a ‘Six nations policy makers forum on Relationship and Sexuality Education(RSE)’. She has published widely in high rankings international peer-reviewed journals including the BMJ, The Lancet Public Health. She has led over ten international team studies as principal investigator with research funding gained from the National Institute of Health and Care research, the Medical Research Council and Economic cand Social Research Council, amongst others. She has contributed as a team member to many more. Recently, she co-published with HIAS member Assistant Professor Mizanur Rahman in the Lancet Global Health.
She is keen teacher of graduate students and mentor for early career staff. She looks forward to meeting staff and students at HIAS for the duration of her visiting position in 2024; 2025 and 2026.

●最近興味のあるトピックをお知らせください。

Health and Gender Equality , especially Sexual and Reproductive Health and Rights (SRHR) and especially men’s/boys’ engagement in SRHR

●研究をしていて楽しいと思うことはどんなことですか？

I enjoy engaging with different perspectives and i especially enjoy learning about multi-cultural and interdisciplinary perspectives.

● ご自身にとって「研究」とは？（一言で表すと。）

Finding out what you can, the best way that you can

●研究者になったきっかけを教えてください。

I guess I liked reading and writing – and university life – and I just kept at it. Once you get your PhD, you are qualified, and once you get your first job, you are on your way to a career.

●若手研究者へのメッセージ

Don’t be afraid of the blank page, it gives you space to start (again).

HIAS Bridges Distinguished 2025

Mandy Ryan Emeritus Professor, Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), University of Aberdeen (Scotland)

Mandy Ryan Emeritus Professor, Health Economics Research Unit (HERU), University of Aberdeen (Scotland)

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Simon Deakin Professor of Law and Director, University of Cambridge

Prasada Rao Emeritus Professor, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Prasada Rao Emeritus Professor, School of Economics, University of Queensland

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)

Maria Lohan Professor, School of Nursing and Midwifery, Queen’s University Belfast (UK)