Professor Richie Poulton is the newly-appointed Chief Science Advisor for the Ministry of Social Development, Radio New Zealand reports.
An excerpt (read in full here):
New chief science advisor appointed
The newly-appointed chief science advisor for the Ministry of Social Development hopes to help make vulnerable people’s lives better.
Professor Richie Poulton, who appeared in Thomson Reuters’ 2014 list of the world’s most influential scientific minds, becomes one of six chief science advisors across government departments.
Having led the Dunedin Multidisciplinary Health and Development Study at the University of Otago for the past 15 years, he is also their Professor of Psychology, the co-director of the National Centre for Lifecourse Research and director of the Graduate Longitudinal Study.
Professor Poulton said he hoped to improve evidence based support for people such as children in care.
“I’m excited to have the opportunity to facilitate the uptake of research findings so they can help make vulnerable people’s lives better.
“I’m a little sick of doing the best quality research my team can do and not seeing it have any impact beyond the academy, given that what we do in terms of understanding how people’s lives turn out should be relevant to policy makers.
“Some colleagues of mine were a little sceptical about how this could turn out, but, I’ve got to say, I’m very optimistic.”