Ian came to Australia from Winnipeg Canada in 1986. He teaches Legal Method and Reasoning and Torts in the new JD program and is one of the lecturers involved in designing the new University breadth subject, Drugs That Have Shaped Society. He also has coached several Jessup International Law Moot Court competition teams.
Ian has been actively involved in many Faculty and University committees. He was a member of the University's Interim Board of Undergraduate Studies and the Faculty's Executive and Budgets and Special Consideration Commitees. He recently completed a term as Associate Dean (Undergraduate) and chair of the Faculty's Undergraduate Studies Committee, as well as appointments to the University's Special Entry Pathways Sub-Committee, Undergraduate Scholarships Sub-Committee and Curriculum Commission. He helped develop and implement the Faculty's new LLB curriculum and has been instrumental in designing the framework for its new JD degree. Ian has chaired and served on Access Melbourne Committees for many years as well as the Equal Opportunity Committee. He has often been appointed as one of the Faculty's Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Intersex Liaison Officers.
In 2007, Ian was appointed the Faculty's first Director of its Office for Teaching and Learning in Law. He was the Faculty's Director of Teaching on several occasions and twice helped lead the Australasian Law Teachers' Association's Teaching Workshp. In 2001, 2003 and 2006, Ian was one of the University of Melbourne's nominees for an Australian Award for University Teaching. In 2003, he was awarded the Barbara Falk Award for Teaching Excellence - one of the University's inaugural teaching awards. In 2007, he was awarded a "Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student learning" in the Carrick Australian Awards for University Teaching .
Ian holds a Bachelors of Law degree from the University of Manitoba and a Masters of Law degree from the University of London. His research interests include the policy issues underlying the law relating to HIV (for example, harm minimisation in the context of providing supervised injecting facilities), prisoners' rights and compensation law reform. He co-authored, with Professor Martin Davies, the 4th and 5th editions of Torts, published in 2003 and 2008, respectively, by LexisNexis Butterworths.
