Speakers for the 2nd Australasian Pandemic Influenza History Symposium

Dr Geoffrey Rice

Dr Geoffrey Rice, FRHistS, MRSNZ, is currently Professor of History and Head of the School of History at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand, where he teaches courses in Medieval and Early Modern History.

He is still publishing in the field of eighteenth century diplomacy and international relations, his original field, but most of his publications have been related to the social history of medicine or New Zealand biography and local history. The first of his nine books,  Black November (1988) on the 1918 influenza pandemic in New Zealand, was reissued in an enlarged illustrated edition in 2005 and was a finalist in the History section of the Montana NZ Book Awards in 2006.

He was the foundation secretary of the NZ Historical Association (1979-81) and served for 25 years as secretary of the Canterbury Historical Association (1982-2007). He was general editor for the revised and enlarged second edition Oxford History of New Zealand (1992), and served as a regional organiser for the Dictionary of New Zealand Biography (1990-2000), contributing entries to all five volumes.

His most recent books have included illustrated urban histories of Christchurch and Lyttelton, and his biography of Heaton Rhodes of Otahuna (1991) is about to be reprinted by Canterbury University Press

Prof G. Dennis Shanks MD, MPH

Dr G. Dennis Shanks is the Director of the Australian Army Malaria Research Institute (AMI) in Brisbane, Australia.  As a civilian within the Australian Defence Force, he is responsible for an independent medical research institute directed primarily at the prevention of malaria in soldiers deployed in Asia. 

Dr Shanks currently holds a professorship at the Faculty of Health Sciences of Queensland University through the Centre of Military and Veterans Health.  He is a graduate of Southwestern Medical School at the University of Texas at Dallas and has a Masters of Public Health from the Tulane School of Public Health in New Orleans. 

Dr Shanks trained as a pediatrician, public health and infectious disease physician and is a Fellow of the Infectious Disease Society of America.  For 20 years Colonel Shanks was a US Army medical officer who spent the majority of his military career conducting field trials of new antimalarial drugs in the tropics. 

His assignments included service at the Walter Reed Army Medical Center, the overseas laboratories of the Walter Reed Army Institute of Research in Thailand and Kenya, the Australian Army Malaria Research Unit, and the US Army’s Center for Health Promotion and Preventive Medicine. 

Dr Keith Horsley

Dr Keith Horsley works at the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare, where he on secondment from the Department of Veterans’ Affairs. A graduate from Queensland University, he holds degrees in medicine and public administration. He has researched the health of Australia’s veteran community, particularly as it relates to cancer incidence and mortality.

He is also interested in military medicine, pandemics (particularly influenza) and the effects of exposure to stress. He is a member of the editorial board for the Journal of Military and Veteran Health, and is an honorary Associate Professor at the Centre for Military and Veteran Health.