Fiona Stanley

Professor Fiona Stanley AC, FAA
Stanley, shortly after running in the Olympic torch relay, in Canberra, 2008.
Born	Fiona Juliet Stanley (1946-08-01) 1 August 1946 (age 70) Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales
Nationality	Australian
Fields	Epidemiology
Institutions	Telethon Institute for Child Health Research (1990-2011); University of Western Australia
Education	St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls
Alma mater	University of Western Australia University of London London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine
Known for	Confirmed the benefit of folate in preventing spina bifida
Influences	Jonas Salk, Gus Nossal
Notable awards	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)
Spouse	Geoffrey Shellam (m. 1973)
Children	Hallie and Tiffany
Notes

Fiona Juliet Stanley AC, FAA (born 1 August 1946) is an Australian epidemiologist noted for her public health work, and her research into child and maternal health, and birth disorders such as cerebral palsy. Stanley is the Patron of the Telethon Institute for Child Health Research and a Distinguished Professorial Fellow in the School of Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Western Australia. Between 1990 and December 2011 Stanley was the founding director of the Telethon Institute.

Stanley was born in Little Bay, Sydney, New South Wales. She loved reading about people like Marie Curie and through her father, who was a researcher on polio, she met Jonas Salk. Stanley has said of her childhood that "In my dreams I would sail out to all the undiscovered islands and inoculate the inhabitants in a whirlwind race to conquer disease and pestilence."

In 1956, the family moved to Western Australia when Stanley's father took the Foundation Chair of Microbiology at the University of Western Australia. Stanley attended St Hilda's Anglican School for Girls before studying medicine at the University of Western Australia, graduating in 1970.

She married Geoffrey Shellam, who later occupied the same chair of microbiology that her father had occupied. They have two daughters.

Her first job in the early 1970s, was in a paediatric clinic at Perth's children's hospital, Princess Margaret Hospital for Children, where her patients included thin and sick Aboriginal children flown in from remote western settlements. She said of this work that "we would perform expensive 'miracles' ... and then dump them back into the environments that had caused their problems". Consequently, she says, she started travelling, with colleagues, to "every mission camp, reserve and fringe-dwelling group in Western Australia ... talking to the old people ... trying to get a handle on the health issues and the environmental issues". She began to understand the impact of life chances and living conditions on children. She also worked at the Australian Aborigine Aboriginal Clinic in East Perth.