Mary Bullivant: Biography

Mary Bullivant completed an Honours degree in Physiology at the University of London, spent time in Boston and then came to New Zealand. She taught Physiology briefly in the Department of Zoology and then for over twenty years in the Department of Physiology of the University of Auckland, where she rose from Junior Lecturer and Tutor to Lecturer, Senior Lecturer and Associate Professor.

She completed her PhD with studies of the function of the isolated rat kidney and maintained research in this field throughout her academic career, persisting despite the absence of the stimulus of others working in this field in New Zealand or Australia. With her graduate students she published in the major journals of the United Kingdom and the USA.

She presented papers regularly to the Physiological Society of NZ, of which she was Treasurer, Secretary and Committee member for many of its early years. She was a hard-working and effective teacher and administrator, popular with staff and students but setting notably high standards. As a member of the Health Research Council she made special efforts to improve the conditions and prospects of medical researchers.

She was held in the highest esteem by her colleagues for her ability to combine personal warmth, common-sense, and sympathy with a sense of justice, of academic correctness, and of professional integrity. Her early death in October 1992, after progressive ill-health, was mourned by all. When asked by the Society, her own wish was to be commemorated by the recognition of student achievement in our Society. The Society's existing award for student presentations was thus re-named in her honour in May 1992.