Professor Sally Brinkman

Professor Sally Brinkman is a social epidemiologist with the majority of her research focusing on societies’ impact on child development in multiple countries. Sally is the Program Head of International Child Development and Team Head of Child Health, Development and Education for the Telethon Kids Institute. Sally is also the Co-Director of the Fraser Mustard Centre, an innovative initiative between Telethon Kids and the South Australian Department for Education aimed to improve research translation. Further, Sally holds an Adjunct Professor position with the University of Adelaide.

Sally is well known for spearheading the Australian Early Development Census (AEDC), being the first to pilot the underlying instrument outside of Canada. Sally continues to work across the country with communities, service providers, and governments to help facilitate their use of the AEDC data. Internationally, Sally works with governments and donor organisations, such as the World Bank, UNICEF, and UNESCO, on various measures of child development for monitoring and evaluation purposes, with her primary focus in Pacific island countries and South East Asia.