| Victoria Grace |
Victoria Marion Grace is a New Zealand academic, and is professor emerita at the University of Canterbury. Grace's research was on the sociology of health and medicine.
Grace completed a Bachelor of Arts at the University of Otago, a Master of Social Science at the University of Waikato, and then returned to Canterbury for a PhD, which she completed in 1989.[1] Grace then joined the faculty of the University of Canterbury, rising to full professor. She was appointed professor emerita in 2016.[2]
Grace's research was on the sociology of health and medicine. She had a long-running research programme on chronic pain in women, focussing especially on women's experiences of pelvic pain, but also covering chronic fatigue, the impact of pharmaceuticals such as Viagra on women, medical visualisation technology, and issues around in vitro fertilisation and donor insemination.[3]
Grace received research funding from the Health Research Council, and Marsden grants. In 2011, Marsden-funded research led by Grace and Gerald Midgley (of ESR and the University of Hull), examined the different understandings of DNA evidence, probability and certainty across parties in the legal system, e.g. professional participants such police detectives and Crown prosecutors, and lay members of the public who would participate as jury members.[4] The research suggested that jury members would benefit from clearer explanations of probability statements before a trial began, and lawyers might need training in the understanding and presentation of DNA evidence.