Dr Naomi Priest received her PhD in 2009 in population health at the University of Melbourne undertaking a qualitative participatory study with Aboriginal communities published in health sociology journals. She then completed a National Health and Medical Research Council (NHMRC) post-doctoral fellowship 2010-2014 also at the University of Melbourne with training in social epidemiology. In 2014-15 she was a Visiting Scientist at Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health. 

She was recently awarded a NHMRC Career Development Fellowship (2017-2020) to continue her work on How does early life adversity “get under the skin” to influence lifelong health? – Identifying opportunities for prevention among Aboriginal and ethnic minority peoples. 

PhD (Melbourne)

Dr Naomi Priest’s broad research interest is to integrate empirical research methods across disciplines to provide evidence for precision policy to address inequities. This includes quantitative and qualitative research to understand differences in health and development experienced by children and youth from Indigenous backgrounds and from ethnic minoritised backgrounds, and explanations for observed differences across intersecting identities and experiences such as gender, socioeconomic position, and disability. Much of this work focuses on patterns, mechanisms and prospective influence of adverse early life exposures and stressors, including discrimination, stigma and bias.

She is also interested in socialisation processes among children from stigmatised and non-stigmatised groups, including development of racial/ethnic attitudes, bias, stereotypes and prejudice.

A third area of her research is focused on initiatives to counter stigma, discrimination and bias and promote diversity and inclusion among individuals, organisations and across society.