Fiona Stanley

Fiona Stanley was an Australian epidemiologist and public health researcher who made significant contributions to child and maternal health, especially in the areas of birth defects, cerebral palsy, and Aboriginal health. She was the founding director of the Telethon Kids Institute and a distinguished professorial fellow in the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia. She was born in 1946 in Little Bay, New South Wales, to a Catholic family of English and Irish descent. She attended St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls before studying medicine at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1970. Her first job was in a paediatric clinic at Perth's former children's hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, where she encountered many Aboriginal children with poor health outcomes. She decided to pursue a career in epidemiology and public health to address the root causes of these problems. She spent six years in the United Kingdom, at the Social Medicine Unit at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine, and the United States researching these areas before returning to Perth to establish research programs at the University and within the health department. She was one of the first to use linked data sets to study the impact of environmental and social factors on child health. She also conducted large-scale population surveys and longitudinal studies to identify risk factors and preventive strategies for various conditions. She founded the Telethon Kids Institute in 1990, which became one of the largest and most respected medical research institutes in Australia. She led many groundbreaking projects, such as confirming the benefit of folate in preventing spina bifida, developing a vaccine for Haemophilus influenzae type b (Hib), improving the diagnosis and management of cerebral palsy, reducing sudden infant death syndrome (SIDS), and promoting early childhood development. She also advocated for evidence-based policies and programs to improve child health and well-being, especially for disadvantaged and Indigenous communities. She was involved in many national and international organisations, such as the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth (ARACY), the World Health Organization (WHO), the Australian Academy of Science (AAS), and the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation. She received many awards and honours for her work, including the Companion of the Order of Australia (1996), Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science (2002), Centenary Medal (2001), Australian of the Year (2003), Australian Living Treasure (2004), UNICEF Maurice Pate Award (2004), Prime Minister's Science Prize (2011), and WA Citizen of the Year (2014). She died in 2020 at the age of 74 from cancer. She was survived by her husband Geoffrey Shellam, a professor of microbiology who also worked at the University of Western Australia, and their two daughters Katherine and Emily.