Rate My Professor Chrys Jaye

Professor Chrys Jaye is a distinguished medical anthropologist serving as Professor in the Department of Primary Health Care within the University of Otago's Dunedin campus, part of the Division of Health Sciences. She earned her BA (Hons), Postgraduate Diploma in Tertiary Teaching (PGDipTertT), and PhD from the University of Otago. With more than two decades of experience at the university, based in the Dunedin School of Medicine, she advanced to full professorship, marked by her Inaugural Professorial Lecture in October 2024 entitled "Anthropological imaginations and imagined anthropologies." In addition to her academic role, she holds the position of Associate Dean (Postgraduate Studies) for the Health Sciences Division and directs the CARE Research Theme. She has served as a co-investigator on a Health Research Council (HRC) Partnerships for NZ Health Delivery funded project in 2010.

Professor Jaye's research employs an anthropological imagination to explore diverse aspects of health studies, including medical education and the hidden curriculum, teamwork in clinical settings, communities of clinical practice, general practice intersecting with public health, medical anthropology and sociology in New Zealand healthcare, moral economy and moral capital, ageing studies, and death and dying. She teaches GENA 825: Culture, Health, and Society, and is available to supervise Master's and PhD students. Her prolific scholarship is evidenced by over 120 publications, more than 1,500 citations on ResearchGate, and over 2,300 citations on Google Scholar. Notable works include "Conduit or conductor? Physician providers' descriptions of their role as MAiD assessors in the first years after legalisation in Canada" (Winters et al., Journal of Medical Ethics, 2025), "“We do not stop being Indigenous when we are in pain”: An integrative review of the lived experiences of chronic pain among Indigenous peoples" (Fernandes et al., Social Science & Medicine, 2025), "Providing medically assisted dying in Canada: A qualitative study of emotional and moral impact" (Penfield Winters et al., Journal of Medical Ethics, 2025), "An evaluation of the New Zealand SilverTech smartphone course for older adults" (Jaye et al., Journal of Applied Gerontology, 2024), "How to undertake research with refugees: Lessons learned from a qualitative health research programme in Southern New Zealand" (George et al., Australian Journal of Primary Health, 2024), and "Barriers to equitable maternal health in Aotearoa New Zealand: an integrative review" (Dawson et al., 2019). As General Editor of Sites: A Journal of Social Anthropology and Cultural Studies, she significantly influences anthropological discourse in health contexts.