Sylvia Rumball

Sylvia Vine Sheat Rumball (née Sheat; born 1939) is a New Zealand scientist and an international expert in scientific research ethics.

Education Rumball completed a BSc and MSc (1962) at the University of Canterbury. She moved to the University of Auckland where she undertook a PhD in chemistry (1966), supervised by Professor (later Sir) Neil Waters.

Career During her PhD studies, Rumball worked as a junior lecturer at the University of Auckland from 1963 to 1966. She then moved to the University of Oxford on a postdoctoral fellowship and studied protein crystallography under Dorothy Hodgkin. She served on the University Council from 2005 to 2008. She was appointed Professor Emeritus in July 2009, officially retiring in November of the same year.

From 2002 to 2011 she was chair of the National Ethics Committee on Assisted Human Reproduction, later known as the Advisory Committee on Assisted Reproductive Technology (ACART). She also served on the Drug Free Sport New Zealand Board from 2007 to 2015. Rumball also served on UNESCO's International Bioethics Committee and the International Council for Science's Committee on Freedom and Responsibility in the conduct of Science. In the 2008 New Year Honours, she was promoted to Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, also for service to science.