MEDICALLY COMPLEX PREGNANCIES
Dr Shelley Wilkinson, Project Officer
Department of Obstetric Medicine,
Mater Mothers’ Hospital &
Associate Professor and Senior Principal Research Fellow,
School of Pharmacy, University of Queensland &
Director & Principal Dietician,
Lifestyle Maternity & Lifestyle Perimenopause
Brisbane, Australia
RESEARCHER PROFILE
Filmed in Brisbane, Australia | November 2025
A/Prof Shelley Wilkinson is an Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian, Fellow of Dietitians Australia, and a leading Australian researcher in maternal health and implementation science.
She has over 30 years of experience in the field and holds a PhD in Psychology. Her passion is in health service redesign through co-creation and combining the ‘know-what’ of nutrition with the ‘know-how’ of innovative behaviour change techniques.
Currently, she is involved in the implementation and evaluation of the Obstetric Midwifery Group Practice (“OMGP”) model of care and the “4HER” post-pregnancy cardiometabolic health clinic at Mater Mothers’ Hospitals.
She is also the Director and Principal Dietitian at Lifestyle Maternity and Lifestyle PeriMenopause. Here she delivers women-focussed, evidence-based & innovative care designed to empower women with the skills and knowledge to make informed decisions for their well-being.
Assoc Prof Wilkinson has previously held prestigious fellowships, including the NHMRC TRIP fellowship and the Queensland Government-Health Research Fellowship, which focused on improving dietetic care for women with gestational diabetes and optimising service delivery for healthy gestational weight gain.
She has been recognised for her research excellence with six awards in Evidence-Based Practice and Clinical Research.
Source: Supplied
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Oral administration of insulin for Type 1 Diabetes
Huiwen Pang is a 3rd year PhD candidate in the Australian Institute for Bioengineering and Nanotechnology, University of Queensland, focusing on biomedical health research. Prior to commencing his PhD, Huiwen studied animal genetics in his Masters degree at Huazhong Agriculture University in China.
People with diabetes, especially Type 1 diabetes, largely rely on the insulin injections or insulin pumps to control their high blood glucose levels, which is painful and has a high risk of infections.
Huiwen Pang is conducting research on nano-based drug formulations for Type 1 diabetes treatment, with a focus on using nanomaterials to load insulin for oral administration and employing anti-apoptotic and anti-inflammatory approaches to mitigate damage to beta cells.
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Relationship between mental illness and mental wellbeing
Since 2015, Dr Matthew Iasiello has been working on the development and dissemination of mental wellbeing interventions across the Australian community at the South Australian Health and Medical Research Institute (SAHMRI). His PhD research was designed specifically to strengthen the translational work conducted by SAHMRI, and to solve problems that represented gaps in the literature that were arising when delivering mental wellbeing interventions into the community. The impact and relevance of Dr Iasiello’s work has been demonstrated with invited presentations at international academic conferences, and multiple media stories with significant online engagements.
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Identification, characterisation and role of leader cells in ovarian cancer progression
Dr. Maree Bilandzic is a molecular cancer biologist dedicated to advancing the understanding and treatment of ovarian cancer (OC). Her research addresses critical gaps in OC treatment by investigating the mechanisms behind metastasis, chemotherapy resistance, and tumour recurrence. By utilising innovative methodologies and disease-representative models, Dr. Bilandzic has pioneered the identification and characterisation of leader cells (LCs)—a unique, stem-like subpopulation within tumours that plays a crucial role in OC progression.
