EXEMPLARY achievements

OR NEARLY three decades, Professor Rose McGready has dedicated her life to improving maternal and child health in the tropics of the Thailand-Myanmar border region. Malaria can be a disaster for infected women and their babies, but the increased vulnerability of pregnant women to infection means that they can be unwitting reservoirs of the disease, hampering elimination efforts. Caring for the health of infected pregnant women is crucial to the success of any attempt to control the disease. Rose’s focus on women’s and children’s health is now benefitting the whole community. When she arrived at her clinic in 1994, a multidrug-resistant variant of the deadly malaria falciparum was widespread, with Rose and her team treating up to 100 infected patients a day. Through their work and other dedicated elimination efforts in the region, since 2015 the clinic has not experienced a single case of the disease.

In her time as the Deputy Director and Head of Maternal and Child Health at the Shoklo Malaria Research Unit (SMRU) Rose has helped care for women through over 80,000 pregnancies, including 20,000 episodes of malaria in pregnancy. The SMRU is a joint project of the University of Oxford, where Rose is a Professor of Tropical Medicine, and the medical school of Mahidol University Bangkok. The SMRU also receives funding from the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation and the Wellcome Trust. Via the world’s largest number of randomised controlled treatment studies of malaria in pregnancy, Rose established that rather than the once-standard approach of leaving infected pregnant women untreated, drugs derived from artemisinin – an anti-malarial identified in the 1970s by Nobel Prize-winning Chinese pharmaceutical chemist Tu Youyou – could be safely and effectively used to treat pregnant women. Rose’s studies have contributed to 281 scholarly articles and countless lives saved, both through her direct treatment of infected women and through her research, which has established new protocols for caring for women in malarial regions. Rates of maternal mortality from malaria have plummeted in the region, from 1,000 per 1,000,000 live births in 1985 to zero since 2015.

Rose is now turning her attention to treatment of malaria in breastfeeding women which will help prevent the recurrence of the disease in later pregnancies, and training members of the local community in safe obstetric practices to make up for the severe shortage of local midwives. The intensive obstetrics training program Rose has developed goes a long way towards ensuring women’s health in an area where medical infrastructure is limited and unstable.

In 2023, with the help of friends in Australia, Rose launched the Dr Rose McGready Foundation to expand the work pioneered by the SMRU to other affected areas around the equator.

Additional recipients

ALUMNA 2012-14

CHLOE HICKEY-JONES

Winner of the Young Alumna Award

Sustainable Equity Specialist, Associate Director - UBS Asset Management

Chloe Hickey-Jones is an emerging talent in international financial services, focused on promoting women's participation in the industry. She works as a Sustainable Equity Specialist at UBS Asset Management in London, and leads efforts to elevate women's voices in finance. Chloe serves on the Future Leaders Shadow Board advising the Women in Banking and Finance (WIBF) UK Board, advocating for young women's interests in finance. Her work supports the Accelerating Change Together research program, aimed at addressing gender and inclusion issues in finance. WIBF used this research to launch the GOOD FINANCE Framework, a guide for creating inclusive organisations in financial and professional services.

Alumna 2018 An Coetzee

Winner of the Community Achievement Award

CEO and Founder Young Women in Sustainable Development

Ané is the CEO and founder of Young Women in Sustainable Development (YWISD), which aims to break down the barriers that prevent young women from addressing the United Nations' Sustainable Development Goals. The organisation empowers young women to work on solutions for some of the world's most pressing problems and amplifies their voices in every aspect of international development. Ané has previously worked with Australian aid organisations in the Pacific and is also a delegate to the United Nations Youth Change Conference. YWISD provides guidance to NGOs, including UNICEF, Save the Children, and WorldVision, on involving young people in international development issues.

THE TWO OF us

Louise Maple-Brown and Judith Oliver knew each other at Women’s College, but their friendship was cemented living in Darwin over the last twenty years.

Judith Oliver

[NEWMAN: 1992-95]

Pharmacist, Director, Australian Regional and Remote Community Services, State Manager (NT), Royal Australian College of General Practitioners.

Lou and I had different social connections at College so although we weren’t close friends we knew people in common. I went to Sydney University from Mudgee in Central New South Wales to study pharmacy. I can remember in the first few weeks thinking how well spoken and confident everyone was and by the end of four years feeling like I totally belonged. I think one of the beautiful things about Women’s College is the friendships you make with people both within and outside your course. Confidence comes from being around people who promote you or encourage you.

I moved to Darwin for two years and am still here nearly 22 years later. It’s a great place to live and raise a family. Darwin is more of an expat community and your friends become your family. So, when Lou’s family come to visit her, we look forward to seeing them as well. Lou is someone I can call socially, or to discuss professional issues. It’s great to be able to get insights from someone else whose opinion you value.

There are challenges working in the NT but with that comes all sorts of opportunities as a health professional. The scope of practice is broader and there’s less bureaucracy, so it’s easier to form partnerships and collaborations and have the conversations you need to get things done. It’s rewarding working with people whose chronic disease burden is greater than the rest of the country. Seeing the difference that you can make is really satisfying.

PROFESSOR LOUISE MAPLE-BROWN [1990-93]

Deputy Director Research, Menzies School of Health Research. Senior Endocrinologist, Royal Darwin and Palmerston Hospitals.

After my physician’s training I was interested in doing research, particularly with disadvantaged populations. I had worked in Alice Springs and that had inspired a passion for Aboriginal health. When I received funding to go to Darwin I only committed to one year. That was 21 years ago.

Jude picked me up from the airport when I first arrived. She and (husband) Will were the only people I knew in town. Even though we weren’t the closest friends at College, it was a strong point of connection. I don’t think I was conscious of it when I was at Women’s College, but the strong female role models and leadership opportunities were important. Later in my career I’ve experienced being the only woman on a high level committee or being in the minority. I’ve mentored other women and started a women in medicine group at Darwin hospital. The need for those initiatives has become more obvious to me, and the foundation was there from my time at Women’s.

The challenges of working in the Territory relate to the size of the population and its remoteness. We have a critical shortage in key areas of the workforce and it’s difficult to recruit. I love my role as I am fortunate to work both as a clinician and a medical researcher, as well as in policy and advocacy; together they bring rich opportunity for driving change to improve health outcomes. What’s important to me is making that difference in partnership with Aboriginal people and Aboriginal communities, and contributing to capacity-building with Aboriginal people.

The Realise campaign was launched in 2021 with the goal of increasing the Women’s College scholarship fund to $30 million by the year 2040. This target will enable the College to support half of its students with scholarships and bursaries, ensuring that no young woman is disadvantaged in realising her desire to attend Women’s College and university because of financial or geographic constraints.

Join our six campaign ambassadors in supporting the Realise campaign by using the donation card in this Magazine, or

TO DONATE VISIT

THEWOMENSCOLLEGE.EDU.AU/GIVING/REALISE

Giving Back

3.

How many of us remember sunbathing on a warm spring day in the courtyards, delighting at the colourful haze of azaleas and camellias at the front garden

After a three-year break, the annual Wisteria Lunch returned to Women’s College, marked by the spectacular blooms of the College wisteria. It was the perfect occasion to plant some