Professor Fiona Stanley AC
FAA, FASSA, MSc, MD, FFPHM, FAFPHM, FRACP, FRANZCOG, Hon DSc, Hon DUniv,  Hon MD, Hon FRACGP, Hon FRCPCH

Professor Stanley is the founding Director of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research, established in Perth in 1990, with the aim of conducting multi-disciplinary research to prevent major childhood illnesses and to enhance child and youth health and wellbeing. It currently has nearly 400 employees and students, from basic, clinical and population sciences. Through its unique collaborations, it also is committed to the translation of research into action (policy, practice and commercialisation). Professor Stanley is also the Executive Director of the Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth, a national organisation that was formally constituted in June 2002 with an agenda to improve the health and well-being of young Australians.

In 2004, Professor Stanley was honoured as an Australian “Living National Treasure” by the National Trust and was made Australian of the Year in 2003.  She is married to Professor Geoffrey Shellam. They have two daughters.

Current Positions:

Director, Telethon Institute for Child Health Research
Executive Director, Australian Research Alliance for Children and Youth
Professor, School of Paediatrics and Child Health, the University of Western Australia

Research Interests:

Professor Stanley's career has focussed on the importance of using population data and research to provide significant health, social and economic benefits to the community.

Her research work involves conducting and supervising studies in maternal and child health. Main areas include

1. record linkage and analysis of population data for epidemiological and public health research
2. collaborations to link research, policy and practice
3. strategies to enhance health and well-being in populations
4. the causes and prevention of birth defects and major neurological disorders particularly the cerebral palsies and neural tube defects
5. the patterns  and lifelong consequences of antenatal and perinatal developmental trajectories
6. patterns of maternal and child health in Aboriginal and Caucasian populations.

In 1979 her group of researchers established the WA Maternal and Child Health Research Data Base. It is a unique collection of data on births from the entire state so that the research has a whole of population (and hence an unbiased) approach.  It is a valuable resource for epidemiological research in maternal, child, youth and family health and wellbeing and to evaluate the effects of preventive and clinical health services.

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