Rate My Professor Melissa Stoneham

Dr. Melissa Stoneham is a Senior Research Fellow in the Curtin School of Population Health within the Faculty of Health Sciences at Curtin University, where she has been affiliated with the Public Health Advocacy Institute of Western Australia (PHAIWA) since its inception in 2008. Previously serving as Deputy Director of PHAIWA, she holds a PhD from Queensland University of Technology (2002), a Master's in Environmental and Community Health from Griffith University, a Graduate Certificate in Health Economics from Monash University, a Graduate Diploma in Occupational Health and Safety from QUT, and qualifications in Environmental Health from Queensland Institute of Technology. With over 30 years of experience in public health, environmental health, health promotion, public health policy, and advocacy, Stoneham has worked with local, state, and federal government agencies, universities, and international aid organizations. Her international roles include two years in the Pacific on an alcohol harm minimization project targeting young people and 12 months in Mozambique on a medical waste project. As Principal of Stoneham and Associates, established in the early 2000s, she leads a team providing public health and advocacy services across Australia and the Pacific Asia region.

Stoneham's research focuses on public health advocacy, environmental health influences on food security in rural, regional, and remote Indigenous communities, trachoma elimination, health promotion media campaigns, unhealthy advertising and sponsorship, local government health policies, Indigenous health, and climate change impacts on public health equity. Key publications include 'The Portrayal of Indigenous Health in Selected Australian Media' (2014), 'Local governments' decade of organisational change to promote child health and wellbeing: a Western Australian qualitative study' (2021), 'Demystifying environmental health-related diseases: Using ICD codes to facilitate environmental health clinical referrals' (2024), and recent works such as 'Benchmarking Environmental Health Influences on Food Security in Very Remote Indigenous Communities in Australia: Protocol for a Mixed Methods Study' (2025) and 'Food security systems change: a case study from rural, regional, and remote Australia' (2025). She received the Environmental Health Australia Presidents Award for Outstanding Contribution in 2020. Stoneham contributes through volunteer board and committee roles, editorial positions, and innovative dissemination strategies, influencing public health policy and community wellbeing initiatives, including the Ending Trachoma project and food action groups in Western Australia.