Associate Professor Shelley Wilkinson
PhD, BSc (Hons)(Psyc), Grad Dip Nut & Diet, AdvAPD

Our Director is passionate about supporting women

As a dietitian and a mum, following a number of cycles of IVF herself, Shelley brings unique insights and empathy into what many women experience and need at this time. She is also Brisbane’s most experienced prenatal dietitian.

Tailoring knowledge from

Scientific research to individual situations

Shelley is passionate about helping women and couples achieve their goal of starting a family through optimising their health to improve their fertility, their pregnancy, and beyond. She achieves this through tailoring knowledge from the scientific research to individual’s situations and preferences.

Shelley has worked as a dietitian since 1995. She specialises in the area of women’s health, including lifestyle change to improve fertility, nutrition for the healthiest pregnancy possible, and practical advice for new mums.

Shelley was a dietitian at Brisbane’s Mater Mothers’ Hospital for 12 years and is now a service development and redesign expert in the Mater Mothers’ Department of Obstetric Medicine. She also works part time an Associate Professor in the UQ School of Pharmacy as a Senior Principal Research Fellow on the RECARD project.

To learn more about Shelley’s work as a clinician-researcher click here.

Best of both worlds

Blending dietetics and psychology

ANZAED dietitian badgeShelley is a Dietitian with a PhD in Health Psychology.

Her research was part of a community-based healthy pregnancy project, with the focus of her project investigating better ways to support women to achieve a healthier pregnancy through better nutrition and physical activity.

She has carried through her learnings to Lifestyle Maternity where she blends dietetics and psychology—supporting women in living healthier lifestyles, particularly through optimal nutrition and supporting the process of behaviour change in the programs she designs and runs.

Shelley has also completed the Dr Rick Kausman ‘if not dieting’ training and incorporates many of these techniques and approaches in her counselling sessions.

  • Advanced Accredited Practising Dietitian (AdvAPD)
  • Credentialed Eating Disorder Clinician (ANZAED)
  • Member of the Fertility Society of Australia and New Zealand (FSANZ)
  • Member of the Australasian Diabetes in Pregnancy Society (ADIPS)
  • Member of Dietitians Australia

B.HealthSci (Nut&Diet)(Hons1), BA (SportsStudies), APD.

Elin Donaldson

Elin has worked as an Accredited Practising Dietitian for over ten years, with most of these as the Senior Maternity Dietitian at Brisbane’s Mater Mothers Hospitals. She has extensive experience and a special interest in gestational diabetes and all aspects of nutrition and weight management related to preconception, pregnancy and postnatal care.

Elin is passionate about women’s health and, as a mum with personal experience with IVF and GDM, brings an empathetic approach to helping women to tailor evidence-based and practical nutrition advice to their individual requirements and preferences.

Elin has also completed the Dr Rick Kausman ‘if not dieting’ training and incorporates many of these techniques and approaches in her counselling sessions.

  • Accredited Practising Dietitian (APD)
  • Member of Dietitians Australia