Dr Tamara Browne

STAFF PROFILE

Position

Senior Lecturer, Health Ethics, Law And Professional Development

Faculty

Faculty of Health

Department

School of Medicine

Qualifications

Doctor of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, 2013
Master of Philosophy, University of Cambridge, 2007
Bachelor of Science, University of Sydney, 2004
Bachelor of Biotechnology, Australian National University, 2003

Contact

Biography

Tamara is a bioethicist and philosopher of medicine. She is a Senior Lecturer in Health Ethics and Professionalism in the School of Medicine at Deakin University and University and an Adjunct Research Fellow in the Practical and Public Ethics Research Group at Charles Sturt University. She has degrees in Biotechnology, History and Philosophy of Science, and Sociology. She completed her PhD at the Centre for Family Research at the University of Cambridge. Her primary research expertise is in the ethics of non-medical sex selection, mental illness and gender. Her book, Depression and the Self: Meaning, Control and Authenticity, published with Cambridge University Press, focuses on issues of control, responsibility and the self in depression and uses qualitative interviews with women to explore this topic.

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Biography summary

Her papers have appeared in such journals as the Journal of Medical Ethics, Philosophy, Psychiatry and Psychology, Health, Risk and Society and Medicine, Health Care and Philosophy. Her work has also appeared in the media, including The Guardian, The Huffington Post, Psychology Today, The Globe and Mail, The Sydney Morning Herald, The Age, The Conversation, Wired, ABC radio and The Project. She has received professional recognition for her teaching, becoming a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. While a Lecturer in Bioethics at the Australian National University, her skills were also recognised with three teaching awards – the Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning - with a Colleges of Science Award, a Vice-Chancellor’s Award and a National Award.

Teaching interests

Bioethics

Health ethics

Expertise

Ethics and philosophy of: 1. mental illness (particularly depression, premenstrual dysphoric disorder, and female sexual dysfunction) 2. reproductive technology (particularly sex selection and sex determination) 3. sex and gender I welcome Higher Degree Research students in these areas.
  • Ethics
  • Gender
  • Gender issues
  • Philosophy

Media appearances

Television

2018 Sex selection, The Project

Radio

2020 Gender disappointemt, ABC Radio Melbourne, 16 April

2018 Gender neutral clothing, ABC Radio Melbourne, 27 Nov

2018 Depression and your sense of self, All in the MindABC Radio National

2017 Sex selection, ABC Radio Melbourne, Talking Lifestyles and National Radio News

2015 Sex selection, ABC Radio Canberra

2014 Premenstrual dysphoric disorder, ABC Radio Canberra

Newspaper

2017 Gender and clothing, The Sydney Morning Herald

2017 Sex selection, the Huffington Post UK and Australian Fairfax newspapers, e.g. The Age

2014 Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder reported in Australian Fairfax newspapers, e.g. The Sydney Morning Heraldand news.com.au

2013 Female Sexual Dysfunction, The Globe and Mail

Podcasts

2012 Bioethics on Entitled Opinions

Opinion Pieces

2020 Hendl, T. and Browne, T.K. Sad About Having a Boy Not a Girl? Your Distress Might be Real but ‘Gender Disappointment’ is No Mental Illness, The Conversation, 10 March

2018 Browne, T.K. The Importance of Feeling Authentic on Antidepressants, Fifteen Eighty Four,13 Sep

2017 Browne, T.K. We Need to Rethink How We Classify Mental Illness, The Guardian, 30 Oct.

2017 Browne, T.K. and Hendl, T. Gender Equity, Not Sex Selection, Journal of Bioethical Inquiry Blog, 20 June.

2017 Browne, T.K. Parents Don’t Need Sex Selection to Get the Gender They Want, The Guardian, 29 April.

2015 Browne, T.K. Parent Planning: We Shouldn't Be Allowed to Choose Our Children's Sex, The Ethics Centre, 16 Sep (reprinted in Center for Genetics and Society blog).

2015 Browne, T.K. The Disordered Logic of Female Sexual Interest/Arousal Disorder, Impact Ethics, 8 Sep.

2013 Kayali, T. Forgotten Ethics in Canadian Dementia Care Guidelines, Impact Ethics, 17 April.

2013 Kayali, T. Female Sexual Dysfunction and Disease Mongering, Psychology Today and The Huffington Post, 4 March.

Awards

2016 Australian Award for University Teaching – Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning


2016 Vice-Chancellor's Award for Excellence in Education – Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (Early Career), ANU


2015 Colleges of Science Award – Citation for Outstanding Contribution to Student Learning (Early Career), ANU