A/Prof Shelley Wilkinson is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian and is the Senior Research Dietitian in the Mater Mothers’ Hospitals. She is recognised as a leading Australian researcher in maternal health and in implementation science. Shelley has been a dietitian since 1995 and also has a PhD in Psychology.
Shelley is undertaking a Queensland Government-Health Research Fellowship (2015-20) focussed on improving the delivery of dietetic care to women with gestational diabetes, supporting healthy gestational weight gain, and improving delivery of evidence-based nutrition information to pregnant women. This research aims to improve the health of Queensland mothers and babies by increasing the nutrition knowledge, know-how, and capabilities of statewide services and clinicians to provide the best nutritional care to women during and after pregnancy. The programs follow key steps known to facilitate the adoption of best practice to support women have healthy pregnancy outcomes for long-term maternal and infant health.
Previously, Shelley held a prestigious NHMRC TRIP (Translating Research Into Practice) fellowship (2012-13) that provided her with mentoring, support, and TRIP training. Her project implemented and evaluated a dietetic model of care based on the American nutrition practice guidelines’ schedule of visits. This was the first stage in a program informing statewide guideline adoption.
Shelley was recently awarded one of the two inaugural ‘Mater Research grants for Outstanding Women’, developed in recognition of significantly fewer women in lead investigator roles and senior academic positions to support research and career progression of high potential female researchers at Mater.
“Over the last nine years I have built an extensive research portfolio with an emphasis in decreasing the time it takes for research to be translated into clinical practice. This is enhanced by being a clinician-researcher embedded in a maternity service. This grant is enabling us to develop and test mHealth (mobile health) programs to support women lead healthier lives during and after pregnancy through a low-cost, broad-reach, effective format.”, A/Prof Wilkinson advised.
Shelley was previously a co-program leader for MRI-UQ’s Mothers and Babies Theme, ‘Optimising Outcomes for Mothers and Babies at Risk’ and has been very involved in Mater’s Allied Health Evidence Based Practice teams.