1. Fiona Juliet Stanley is an Australian epidemiologist noted for her public health work, her research into child and maternal health as well as birth disorders such as cerebral palsy.
15 Facts About Fiona Stanley
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Fiona Juliet Stanley was born in Little Bay, New South Wales.
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Fiona Stanley loved reading about people such as Marie Curie and through her father, who was a researcher on polio, she met Jonas Salk.
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In 1956, the family moved to Western Australia when Fiona Stanley's father took the Foundation Chair of Microbiology at the University of Western Australia.
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Fiona Stanley attended St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls before studying medicine at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1970.
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Fiona Stanley began to understand the impact of life chances and living conditions on children.
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Fiona Stanley worked at the Australian Aborigine Aboriginal Clinic in East Perth.
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Fiona Stanley became "Part of the next trend in medicine, the move from a preoccupation with curing disease to a focus on prevention and social causal pathways".
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Fiona Stanley's research includes strategies to enhance health and well-being in populations; the causes and prevention of birth defects and major neurological disorders such as cerebral palsy; the causes and lifelong consequences of low birth weight; and patterns of maternal and child health in Aboriginal and Caucasian populations.
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Fiona Stanley argued for cross-disciplinary work and said the challenge is "to intervene earlier in the causal cycles".
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Fiona Stanley is a professor at the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at University of Western Australia and the UNICEF Australian ambassador for Early Childhood Development.
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Fiona Stanley was named Australian of the Year in 2003.
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Phase one of the hospital, the Fiona Stanley Hospital named in her honour, officially opened on 3 October 2014.
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Fiona Stanley married Geoffrey Shellam, who later occupied the same chair of microbiology that her father had occupied.
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On 10 October 2023, Fiona Stanley was one of 25 Australians of the Year who signed an open letter supporting the Yes vote in the Indigenous Voice referendum, initiated by psychiatrist Patrick McGorry.