Jane Harding


Dame Jane Elizabeth Harding is a New Zealand academic new-born intensive case specialist. She was awarded the Rutherford Medal, in 2019.

Education and career

Harding studied at the University of Auckland, graduating in 1978, and in 1982 obtained a DPhil in foetal physiology from the University of Oxford. She returned to in New Zealand for paediatric training then completed a postdoctoral fellowship at the University of California, San Francisco. Following that, she worked at the University of Auckland's faculty of Medicine from 1989, becoming Professor of Neonatology in 1997. She is deputy director of the Liggins Institute at the University of Auckland.
Harding is a member of the New Zealand charitable organisation Global Women.

Honours and awards

Harding was elected a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand in 2001. In the 2002 Queen's Birthday and Golden Jubilee Honours, she was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to paediatrics. She was awarded the Health Research Council of New Zealand's Beaven Medal in 2016.
In 2019, Harding received the Rutherford Medal, New Zealand's highest science honour, from the Royal Society of New Zealand.
In the 2020 Queen's Birthday Honours, Harding was promoted to Dame Companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit, for services to neonatology and perinatology.