Really Interesting Women

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Ep. 138 Jo Stanley Jo Stanley has had an incredibly successful media career spanning over 2 decades.  During that time, amongst many other achievements, she took 2 radio shows on 2 different networks to Number 1. She’s probably the only woman in Australia to ever do this.  She was co-host of The House of Wellness TV and Radio, is producer and host of numerous...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast Episode 137 Dr Louise Mahler Dr Louise Mahler is one of the world’s leading keynote speakers. She has been voted. amongst the top experts in both Body Language and Communication globally.    ...and it started following a decade singing Opera in Europe, including a soloist contract at the Vienna State Opera. From that, Louise began an exploration of performanc...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 136   Professor Adele Green AC Adele Green is officially (and often) referred to as "an international leader in the epidemiology of melanoma and skin cancer. Her ground-breaking randomised controlled trial of long-term sunscreen application in an Australian community provides the scientific basis for clinical and public health advice about sunscr...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 134 Justine Barwick "If you can't solve the big problems, solve the little ones in front of you and keep chipping away" Justine Barwick has been working tirelessly and selflessly in the Community Services sector for 25 years. The sort of person that puts the needs of everyone else before her own. But circumstances eventually changed tha...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 133 Melinda Schneider * This podcast contains content about depression * Melinda started in the entertainment industry aged 3 alongside her mother, the legendary yodeller Mary Schneider. She recorded music at 8, had her acting debut in A Country Practice at 13, went on to release 14 albums and win six Golden Guitars from the Country Music Awards of Au...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 132 Melissa Doyle AM Mel Doyle is so much more than 'an accomplished and awarded journalist with more than 30 years experience'. She's actually one of the best-known and trusted voices and faces in Australian media. And after our conversation for this podcast, it's pretty easy to see why.  Mel is, of course, best known as the forme...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 131 SARAH WILSON Sarah is best known for being the founder of the global I Quit Sugar movement, a digital wellness program with 13 award-winning books that sell in 52 countries – which saw millions around the world transform their health. In 2022 she sold the business and gave everything to charity. She is an experienced journalist and broadcaster. Sh...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 130 KATHY LETTE Kathy Lette is a celebrated and outspoken comic writer who has an imitable take on serious current issues. She is one of the pioneering voices of contemporary feminism. She left school at 16 which didn't please her mother who was a school Principal. She wanted to become a published writer. In Australia. In the 70s. As a teenager....

Really Interesting Women - Podcast Episode 129   -   Professor Fiona Wood FRACS AO   Fiona Wood was born in Yorkshire and was told that becoming a surgeon was not something she could do. She’s not the sort of person that hears the word ‘no’.    She studied medicine in London and was an outlier. And there was another outlier there...a male doctor often seen in handknitted jumpers and Dunlop Volleys...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 128 SUSAN JOHNSON The Australian newspaper has described Susan Johnson as, ‘One of the finest Australian writers.’ She describes herself as,  author, incurable Australian, friend, feminist, ambivalent mother skewered by love and struck by eternal wanderlust. Isn't that a terrific description.   Her books include, From Where I Fell, published in 2...

Really Interesting Women - The Podcast Episode 127 DR SONIA HENRY Sonia Henry is a doctor practicing in rural Australia. I mean, really rural. She’s also a best-selling author, and an advocate, not only for the welfare of overworked doctors but for the improvement of medical services to remote indigenous communities.  This is a fascinating and inspiring story of how one doctor, almost on a whim, d...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast Ep. 126      MOYA DODD AO Moya Dodd is a lawyer, sports administrator and a former vice-captain of Australia’s women’s football team, the Matildas. She played in FIFA’s first ever women’s tournament in 1988.  Twenty-five years later, she joined the governing body of FIFA as one of the first women in its 108-year history. It's unsurprising that when she w...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast Episode 125 Dr Maria Pallotta-Chiarolli AM It's hard to briefly describe Maria's bio  - but it goes a long way explaining it by understanding she is from a Southern Italian poor, migrant, working class background which instilled in her a resistance to systemic injustice. She has been an academic, author, activist and ally in the issues and intersect...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast Ep. 124 Catherine Branson AC KC In 1984 Catherine Branson made history when a dual appointment saw her became the first woman in Australia to be appointed Crown Solicitor and the first woman to be appointed as permanent head of a government department in South Australia.   She went to the bar in Adelaide and then took silk in 1992. An appointment as a judge t...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast  Episode 123 AMBER LAWRENCE Amber started her professional career as a Chartered Accountant but she left that to pursue a dream.  After a very successful debut in the 2005 Tamworth Country Music Festival  - coming second in the major singing competition to Jessica Mauboy - Amber took that success and started her country music journey in earnest. She put in a...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Ep. 122 Professor Julie Rrap Julie has been a central figure in Australian contemporary art for 4 decades. Our conversation covers a lot and I guess that was inevitable given her enormous contribution to art both in Australia and internationally.  She has worked with photography, painting, sculpture, performance and video in an ongoing project concerned with...

Podcast Episode 121 Distinguished Professor Jenny Graves AC FAA Jenny Graves is a leading evolutionary geneticist who was a very early adopter of gene mapping. She uses genome comparisons to explore the origin, function and fate of human sex genes and chromosomes. In other words, exploring what is it that makes us male, and female and she’s also explored the evolution of the so called ‘gay gene’ a...

Really Interesting Women - The podcast Episode 120      Del Kathryn Barton Del Kathryn Barton is one of Australia’s most recognisable and collectable artists.    She’s now widely recognised as one of Australia's leading figurative painters and a 2-time Archibald Prize winner. Only the second woman to do that in the 103 year history of that portrait prize.    Her first year out of art college...

Really Interesting Women - Podcast  Revisited on 'Throwback Thursday' Anna Funder Ep. 105.    Anna Funder is one of Australia’s most acclaimed and awarded writers and an international success. One of her books is currently being made into a film with a Hollywood household name as its protagonist.    ...and she dreamed of being a writer since she was a child.   Anna spent her early childh...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 119 Associate Professor Michelle Telfer MBBS (Hons.) FRACP GAICD Michelle Telfer, through her work as an expert in adolescent medicine and through her development and expansion of the Royal Children's Hospital Gender Service for 10 years, is one of the best placed professionals in the country to talk about transgender and gender diverse children...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 118 Tana Douglas Tana Douglas is acknowledged throughout the global music industry as a pioneer. She was the first female 'roadie' (road crew for rock bands). The first woman in a testosterone fuelled world. You talk about challenges. There's one. It was a rocky start. She ran away from an abusive childhood and found herself in the earl...

Really Interesting Women - the podcast Episode 117 Louise Herron AM Louise Herron became the first woman appointed to lead the World Heritage-listed Sydney Opera House. During that time, she was charged with transforming the Opera House and overseeing a decade of renewal in all aspects including the largest and most transformative series of building works since the Opera House opened in 1973.   Th...

Really Interesting Women - the Podcast Episode 116    Heather Mitchell AM Heather Mitchell is one of this country’s most acclaimed actors. In a career lasting over 4 decades (and counting), she has been involved in film, theatre and television projects that we would all be familiar with no matter what era you call your own...the TV miniseries Bodyline, the fantasy teen drama Spellbinder , movies s...

Really Interesting Women - The Podcast Episode 115      Suzie Miller Suzie Miller is this country’s most successful playwright.    Her recent play ‘Prima Facie’ has had sold out performances in Australia, London’s West End and New York’s Broadway and is now being produced in over 30 countries. Killing Eve’s Jodie Comer would have had the luxury of being able to choose any theatrical production to...

Really Interesting Women - The Podcast Episode 114 Nicole Livingstone OAM Nicole Livingstone was part of the Australian swimming team for twelve years - starting when she was in Grade 8!  She went to 3 successive Olympic Games winning a silver and 2 bronze medals. She was a short course world record holder in backstroke and, in fact, still holds the longest winning sequence in history of any Austr...