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Jane Harding

New Zealand & Brasenose 1978


Portrait photo of Jane Harding

Born in the far north of New Zealand, Jane Harding studied at The University of Auckland before going on to Oxford to read for a DPhil in fetal physiology. Returning to New Zealand, she completed specialist training in neonatology and then undertook postdoctoral work at the University of California at San Francisco. In 1989, Harding was appointed to the faculty of The University of Auckland, becoming Professor of Neonatology in 1997 and University Distinguished Professor in 2011. She also served as Deputy Vice-Chancellor (Research) for the university and continues to be a member of the Liggins Institute there. Harding is the recipient of numerous awards and honours, including Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to Paediatrics, and the New Zealand Prime Minister’s Science Prize. She is a strong supporter of the Rhodes Scholarship, serving as a member of selection committees and, for ten years, as the Secretary of the Scholarship in New Zealand. This narrative is excerpted from an interview with the Rhodes Trust on 12 March 2025.  

‘I had no idea what doctors did, really’ 

I was born and grew up in the far north of New Zealand, in small rural towns. My childhood was very rural, picking mushrooms out of the fields in the back of our house and going to the beach on the weekends, and I would say that we moved in pretty ordinary middle-class circumstances. It was a very busy house, because I had three siblings. My mother was a teacher and my father was a civil servant, and because of his job, we moved around a bit, but we didn’t move to anything resembling a city until I was ten. I remember I would have been around when age that I read somewhere that people shrank during the day, that they were taller in the morning than at night, and I lined up all of my family and measured them twice a day, just to check.  

So, I must have been interested in the idea of science and experiments already at that time. But we didn’t do any science in my small, rural primary school, and I didn’t actually have any science schooling until high school. Medicine was a bit out of leftfield. I didn’t know anybody who was a doctor and I had no idea what doctors did, really. I just decided at some point that I would go into medicine. There were a couple of teachers at my high school who really stimulated and encouraged me, and I kept in touch with them for many years.  

On applying for the Rhodes Scholarship 

I think I must have heard of the Rhodes Scholarship, but I didn’t know much about it. It just didn’t sound like it was me. My sense is that that’s common for many candidates. Then, when I was in my fifth year studying medicine, I got a message to go and see the Dean, who told me, very firmly, that I should apply. I went away saying, ‘Well, thank you but no thank you.’ I didn’t know at that point that the Dean had actually been a Rhodes Scholar himself. But then I did some more reading, talked to a few people, talked to my family, and they said, ‘Of course you should apply.’ So, I was sort of persuaded to do it. That said, I was left to my own devices when it came to the application itself. I very much did it my own, with hardly any insight as to what should be there.  

‘It was slightly fairytale’ 

I’m sure everybody who goes to Oxford remembers their first days and weeks there. It was such a big transition for me. Oxford was a world of its own. It felt both quite separate to the ‘real world’ but nevertheless very relevant to it as well. It was an exciting place to be, because there was so much potential there, but it was slightly fairytale. 

Back then, there was relatively little interaction with Rhodes House – I think I only went there two or three times the whole time I was in Oxford – or even between Rhodes Scholars. We were all just in our colleges. Also, because I was doing a DPhil without any classes or coursework, I was quite divorced in some ways from the Scholarship. I did get to know some of the other Scholars, particularly those in my college, but there wasn’t a sense of a cohort.  

I was really interested in the research I was doing and very much enjoyed it, even though it was quite isolating because it was a solo endeavour. I had supervisors in the lab, but not anybody in college who I related to in any way. Looking back now, though, I met an amazing number of people who became key colleagues in subsequent years. My PhD supervisor became a very important colleague and friend and mentor over many years, and there were many individuals who came through what was the Nuffield Institute at that time who also became very important mentors and colleagues for me. But I do have to say that by the time I’d finished my DPhil I’d had quite enough of research and was quite determined that I would never go back in a lab again, even though that only lasted about three months! 

‘Every so often, you make progress that will actually make a difference, and that’s fantastic’ 

Before I received the Scholarship, my plan had been to go into general practice. In that sense, being a Rhodes Scholar really did change my life. After Oxford, I realised quite quickly that I certainly wanted to carry on with research, albeit not necessarily the same kind of research. That meant quite a different career trajectory, with training as a specialist and then getting more research experience as a postdoctoral fellow before eventually going into an academic job. 

My DPhil had been in fetal physiology, and when I was doing my initial medical training and considering specialities I was really torn between obstetrics and paediatrics. And, of course, it’s a five- or six-year training programme, so, you rotate around all sorts of different specialities within paediatrics over that time. The area that appealed to me most turned out to be neonatology, which was really just applied fetal physiology.  

In our environment, the role of a clinical academic, as it’s called, is reasonably well defined. In my case, it was a half-time clinical, half-time academic appointment. It’s a real privilege to work between the worlds of clinical practice and academic life. I do think both components complement each other. A lot of teaching is also done in the clinic, so it’s research and teaching and clinical practice altogether. I did that for many years and loved it.  

Most of my work is centred around improving things for mothers and babies, so, every so often, you make progress in a way that will actually make a difference to people, to the next generation, and that’s fantastic. Working with students is also very inspiring, seeing their potential and trying to help them go in the direction they should go. I know from my own experience that the decisions early on, about speciality, for example, were quite hard. In this kind of work, highlights and lowlights are almost daily things. Sometimes things go well for a bit, and then something wonderful will happen, but a lot of the time that isn’t the case, and you learn to go with that.  

Alongside my clinical and academic work, I was involved in the Rhodes selection process for a number of years not long after I came back to New Zealand, and then I was the New Zealand Secretary for ten years. That was another privileged position, meeting the applicants. Even though they can’t all get Rhodes Scholarships, they’re such brilliant young people, and brimming with potential.

‘You can keep doing this thing you love for the rest of your life’ 

The thing that daunts people looking at a career like the one I’ve followed is that it’s such a long training programme. I was well into my 30s before I had my first job, for example. But I always say to people, if you’re doing what you really love, does it matter whether you are still training or whether you’re technically qualified? Once you’re qualified, you can keep doing this thing you love for the rest of your life. There’s no hurry about it.  

And I think the other thing that many people feel early on is that they have to have a plan. I didn’t really have one, and I don’t think many people who are successful in their academic careers do either. Achievement and satisfaction comes from taking opportunities when they arise. If you recognise something wonderful and you’re prepared to grab it, the plans will take care of themselves. Make the most of whatever opportunities come your way: you never know where that will lead, and that’s okay. It’s actually a huge privilege to be able to have these kinds of choices.  

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