Virginia Hope


Virginia Hope is a New Zealand public health specialist, researcher and public sector governance expert. In 2014 Hope was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health.

Academic career

Hope completed a Diploma of Community Health at the University of Otago and a medical degree and Masters of Philosophy at the University of Auckland. Hope served in the Auckland Regional Public Health Service as the Medical Officer of Health for ten years, and then joined the Institute of Environmental Science and Research, a Crown Research Institute, in 2006. She is the Medical Director at ESR, and has also been Chair of the Hutt [Valley District Health Board] and the Capital and Coast District Health Board, and an elected member of the Auckland District Health Board. She was a part of the Ministry of Health's COVID-19 Technical Advisory Group.
Hope serves on the Criminal Cases Review Commission, which investigates potential miscarriages of justice. She was appointed to the role in 2020. She is also on the board of water services regulator Taumata Arowai.

Honours and awards

In the 2014 [Birthday Honours |2014 Queen's Birthday Honours], Hope was appointed a Member of the New Zealand Order of Merit for services to health. In 2020 she was awarded the Science New Zealand Individual Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2021 Hope was part of the team that won the Liley Medal for their research showing the effects of New Zealand's COVID-19 response, which was published in The Lancet.

Selected works