Professor Elizabeth Elliott AM FAHMS FRSN MD MPhil MBBS FRACP FRCPCH FRCPis a Distinguished Professor in Paediatrics and Child Health at the University of Sydney; Consultant Paediatrician at the Sydney Children’s Hospitals Network (Westmead) and holds a prestigious and highly competitive Medical Research Futures Fund Next Generation Fellowship, her third such Fellowship.
She is an elected Fellow and Council member of the Council of the Australian Academy of Health and Medical Science, Fellow and James Cook Medallist of the Royal Society of NSW, and an Inaugural Fellow of the Academy of Child and Adolescent Health. She has specialist qualifications in paediatrics from the UK and Australia and is a Fellow of the Royal Australasian College of Physicians; the Royal College of Paediatrics and Child Health, UK; and the Royal College of Physicians, London. She has a research Doctorate in Medicine (oral rehydration therapy); and a Masters in Philosophy in Public Health (haemolytic uraemic syndrome) from the University of Sydney.
Elizabeth has dedicated her career to advancing the human rights, health, and quality of life for ill and disadvantaged children in Australia and beyond, through education, research, clinical care and advocacy. Specific examples include promoting the health and human rights of children disabled by rare diseases, fetal alcohol spectrum disorder (FASD) and vaccine-preventable and other infectious diseases; Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander children, particularly in remote Australia; asylum seeker and refugee children, particularly in Immigration detention; children receiving cochlear implants; children with Female Genital Mutilation (FGMC); and children with cerebral palsy, including in developing countries in our region, particularly Vietnam.
She vigorously promotes gender equity for girls and women and Chairs the Royal Australasian College of Physicians Gender Equity in Medicine Committee. She was a member of the Advisory group to guide the University of Sydney’s participation in the Athena Swan program, which aims for gender equity in STEMM (science, technology, engineering, maths and medicine) and the Sydney Medical School’s gender equity committee and an invited speaker for GenWomen at the 2018 Sydney Science Festival onWomen in STEMM smash the glass ceiling.
She is the spokesperson on child health for UNICEF Australia and consultant to the WHO and the US National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism. She chairs the Australian Government’s national FASD Advisory Group and is a Board Director for the National Organisation for FASD and Royal Far West. She is widely published and has been recognised for her work nationally and internationally.