Professor Sandra Eades is a Noongar woman whose family come from the Minang, Goreng and Kaniyang clans in south-west Western Australia. In the 2022 Australia Day Honours, Professor Eades and awarded an Officer of the Order of Australia (AO) for her distinguished service to medical research, to Indigenous health, and to professional organisation.
Curtin University was fortunate to engage Professor Eades as Dean of the Curtin Medical School in April 2020. In her role as Dean, she provided leadership of the school, with an emphasis on equipping its students with a focus on primary care. As of January 2022, Professor Eades commenced at the University of Melbourne as Associate Dean Indigenous and Rowden-White Chair of Global Health at the School of Population and Global Health. She had previously held a position of Associate Dean (Indigenous) at the Centre for Epidemiology and Biostatistics at the University of Melbourne prior to moving to Curtin University.
Professor Eades is Australia’s first Aboriginal medical doctor to be awarded a Doctorate of Philosophy (2003). That same year, Professor Eades was recognised as NSW Woman of the Year for her work in paediatric and perinatal epidemiology, identifying links between social factors, such as housing, and infant health. Professor Eades is a Fellow of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Sciences. Her research career has focussed on the epidemiology of Indigenous child and adolescent health and Indigenous adult chronic disease prevention and management. Over the past 20 years, Professor Eades has made substantial contributions to the area of Aboriginal health and has provided leadership at a national level in Aboriginal research.
Professor Eades will co-lead the Ecohealth Research Theme of the ARC Training Centre for Healing Country with Dr Jonathan Bullen and Dr Adam Cross.