Heather D’Antoine is the Division Leader of Education and Research Support, and Associate Director Aboriginal Programs at Menzies School of Health Research (Menzies).
She has an extensive track record in clinical and management of health services which includes 25 years of experience as a registered nurse and midwife and as a health service manager in both Aboriginal health services and general health services across Western Australia. In the last 15 years, Heather has worked in health research: eight years at the Institute for Child Health Research and seven years at Menzies. She has clinical qualifications in general nursing and midwifery and academic qualifications in health sciences and health economics. Heather’s research interest is in maternal and child health. She is particularly focused on the area of fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASD) and other birth defects. Heather has worked with a research team on a number of projects in this area including describing what health professionals and women know and do about alcohol and pregnancy and FASD. She has been involved with developing and evaluating resources for health professionals and developing a model of care for FASD in Western Australia.
She is a Chief Investigator (CI) on the Reducing the effects of alcohol use in pregnancy CRE (GNT1110341) and a CI on the END RHD (rheumatic heart disease) CRE (GNT1080401). Heather is a member of the Public Health Indigenous Leadership in Education which she chaired for four years since 2010, and a member of the Close the Gap campaign Steering Committee and the Public Health Association of Australia. She has published in 35 peer reviewed journals and three book chapters.
Heather has served on a number of NHMRC Grant Review Panels – Strategic funding for palliative care, Early Career Fellowships and Indigenous Grant Review Panel. She has been involved in the ethical review of research projects for ethics committees for seven years. Heather received the Roger Wurm Award: the Australian Society for Psychosocial Obstetrics and Gynaecology at the Annual Conference, Darwin 2014.