Alumni Highlights
Ngiare Brown

Professor Ngiare Brown is a proud Yuin nation woman from the south coast of NSW. She is passionate about Aboriginal and Indigenous health, child safety and adolescent development, and building the evidence base that demonstrates connection across culture, resilience and wellbeing.

Ngiare was one of the first identified Aboriginal medical graduate from NSW, and one of the first Aboriginal doctors in Australia. Over the past three decades she has developed extensive national and international networks in indigenous health and social justice, including engagement with the United Nations.

She is the Founding Director of Ngaoara, a not-for-profit committed to child and adolescent wellbeing, and currently working as a clinician and consultant to develop and deliver sustainable, integrated primary and specialist care for children with complex co-morbidities. Ngaoara is working with individuals, families, communities and services to break the intergenerational cycles of trauma and improve health and social determinant outcomes for our children and adolescents.

“I have a real interest in child and adolescent wellbeing and all that encompasses… we know that the very early years (the way our children grow and develop) are incredibly important. Adolescence is also a key transition period…but there is very little work done in that area, particularly for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander mobs,” said Ngiare.

During her career, Ngiare has held a variety of positions in education, mentoring, clinical practice, research and advocacy. As one of the first Aboriginal doctors in Australia, she has been instrumental in establishing and advocating for improving Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Health, including as founding member and foundation chief executive officer of the Aboriginal Indigenous Doctors Association (AIDA) and founding member of the Pacific Region Indigenous Doctors’ Congress (PRIDoC).

Ngiare was appointed to the Prime Minister’s Indigenous Advisory Council and, in 2017, was appointed as a Commissioner on the National Mental Health Commission. In April 2022, she was announced as the new Chair of the Advisory Board for the National Mental Health Commission and is the first Indigenous woman to lead the Board since the Commission’s inception.

Ngiare Brown
Founding Director, Ngaoara Child & Adolescent Wellbeing

Bachelor of Medicine 1992