Debbie Early, PhD

One Health Resilience Partner

I bridge the gap between public and environmental health to strengthen resilience and sense of place by integrating One Health (the intersection of human, animal and environmental health).

Expertise & Services:

Resilience and proactive adaptation are crucial for surviving and thriving amid constant, often disruptive, changes in the environment, economy and personal life.

Drawing from my diverse project management, technical communications and resilience experience, also informed by women's health advocacy, STEAM (Science, Technology, Engineering, Art, Mathematics), olfaction, motherhood and medical pluralism, I offer:

Bluewater Endeavours

The Art of Awareness

Together supporting transdisciplinary leaders seeking innovative and practical approaches to future-focused co-design, and implementation, for adaptation and One Health resilience.

Current Experience:

An international One Health resilience partner, I am a change-agent in green-blue and relational infrastructure and am an internationally recognised IOC-UNESCO OceanExpert, specifically Ocean-Human Health. My work, focusing on sense of place and disruption, sits at the intersection of urban planning, technology and eco-social wellbeing. My additional perspective enables an approach of “the City as a Cell” and ensures ecosystems are not just “blue” or “green” but also socially resilient and capable of quick recovery from crises and disruption.

My key “T-shaped” skills and systems-thinking include an ability for rapid learning, pattern recognition, empathy and translation, as well as strategic thinking. Driven by curiosity, creativity and compassion, I have a strong ability to link seemingly disparate concepts and am a self-starter. I am committed to One Health resilience and creating a sense of place for our shared future.

Examples of Previous Experience

Marlborough Online invited me to be the Earth Day 2026 Guest Contributor and I was the Earth Day 2020 Guest Contributor for a European, nature-inspired, regenerative design podcast. These provided thought-leadership, system-level influence and cross-pollination.

With a proven track record of being a team-orientated and adaptable professional my varied career was initially shaped growing up in a family of entrepreneurs and explorers. My career has included working in diverse areas e.g.

  • social prescribing, professional development and enviromental philosophy-ethics and resilience education in Australia,
  • regenerative, blue-green, trauma-informed women's health tourism in Aotearoa New Zealand,
  • under-served, rural maternal-child healthcare near the Kingdom of Eswatini (Umbuso weSwatini) border,
  • innovative “eds and meds” in Philadelphia, USA (a premier global hub for life sciences)

I am further informed by pharmacognosy, the history of science with medicine, olfactory science and bioculture. I have personal experience of disruption of place.

I have worked across academia, multinationals, small businesses and non-profits in ethnomedicine and the agricultural, pharmaceutical, personal care product, wellness, social prescribing and agritourism sectors. In addition, I am a widely published, non-fiction author and I have served on several international, advisory boards related to clinical research, wellness, risk, adaptation and sustainability. A former President of the American Medical Writers Association-Delaware Valley Chapter (AMWA-DVC) and former Marlborough Representative to the Top of the South Committee NZ Society of Authors, I am inspired by the late science writer, Rachel Carlson. She described the ocean as the "great mother of life" and demonstrated that the environment and public health are inextricably linked.

I have lived experience of living off-grid and boat-access only in Te Tau Ihu for 5 years, simultaneously woven with being the first person in the world with a PhD in pharmacological toxicology and placentology (the study of the placenta), to write a destination management plan (People, Placenta and Place) from a Mātauranga Māori perspective; whenua (placenta) and whenua (land). On Mother's Day weekend in 2026, this was formalised, as I graduated with a PGCert.P.R.&T. which focused on the intersection of land, ocean, humans, health and technology. In addition, I also have a Diploma as a (ProFemme) Practitioner and a Diploma in Holisitic Health (including e.g. Ethnobotany, Rongoā Māori, Ayurveda, Clinical Aromatherapy and numerous healing traditions outside of biomedicine), woven with lived experience and a lifetime of advocacy for nature and maternal-child health.

Giving Back & Interests

For over 30 years, as a devoted volunteer, I have fostered sustainability through planting 2,500+ trees and uplifted lives through supporting a Sub-Saharan non-profit caring for under-served children and elderly women. A former surfer, in my free time I now enjoy swimming, hiking, nature photography and creating olfactory art.