Professor Welma Stonehouse (previous surname Oosthuizen) is a Principal Research Scientist and Research Group Leader within the Commonwealth Scientific Industrial Research Organisation’s (CSIRO) Human Health Programme. She started her career more than 30 years ago as a scientific researcher, and university lecturer and was later promoted to Associate Professor in Human Nutrition at North-West University, Potchefstroom, South Africa. She then joined Massey University in Auckland as an Associate Professor in Human Nutrition in 2006 until 2013 after which she joined CSIRO. Welma is also an Adjunct Professor at the University of South Australia as well as Queensland University of Technology in Australia.

Welma’s research focuses on the development and scientific evaluation of nutrition interventions for better health. Over the last ~30 years she has collaborated with various academic and industry partners to scientifically validate the health benefits of nutritional products including fats & oils, dairy, fish, supplements (omega-3, vitamin D, antioxidants, krill oil, cranberry), nuts, mushrooms, fruit & vegetables on various health outcomes. Welma has, over the past ~10 years, acquired almost $7.5 million of combined competitive and industry research funding. She has extensive experience in leading large-scale, multidisciplinary clinical trial teams in substantiating the health and functional benefits of foods, food ingredients, diets, and nutraceuticals. 

Welma has successfully supervised 28 PhD/MSc students in Nutrition/Dietetics. She has published more than 100 papers in the international peer-reviewed scientific literature and has a Google Scholar H-index of 40.

In recognition of her outstanding contribution to nutritional science, she was presented with the Muriel Bell Award from the Nutrition Society of New Zealand in 2013.

Welma is currently President of the Nutrition Society of Australia, Treasurer of the International Union of Nutrition Sciences, Trustee of the Australian Nutrition Trust Fund (ANTF) and ex officio member of the Australian Academy of Science National Committee for Nutrition. Welma is the immediate past chair of the Oceanic Nutrition Leadership Platform (ONLP) and played a significant role in establishing the ONLP (www.onlp.org).