Dimity Dornan AO is a speech pathologist, author, social entrepreneur, bionics advocate, researcher, and businesswoman in

Brisbane Brisbane ( ; ) is the List of Australian capital cities, capital and largest city of the States and territories of Australia, state of Queensland and the list of cities in Australia by population, third-most populous city in Australia, with a ...

Queensland Queensland ( , commonly abbreviated as Qld) is a States and territories of Australia, state in northeastern Australia, and is the second-largest and third-most populous state in Australia. It is bordered by the Northern Territory, South Austr ...

, Australia. She is the founder of the Hear and Say Centre for Deaf Children on 6 July 1992 and helped initiate newborn hearing screening in Queensland hospitals, the first such program in Australia. She has received

Australian of the Year The Australian of the Year is a national award conferred on an Australian citizen by the National Australia Day Council, a not-for-profit Australian Government-owned social enterprise. Similar awards are also conferred at the state and territor ...

for Queensland in 2003, and the Suncorp Queenslander of the Year in 2010.

Griffith University Griffith University is a public university, public research university in South East Queensland on the Eastern states of Australia, east coast of Australia. The university was founded in 1971, but was not officially opened until 1975. Griffith ...

offers a ''Dimity Dornan Hear and Say Master of Speech Pathology Scholarship'' for second year students who have an interest in paediatric speech pathology and working in a regional area.

Career

Dornan was the first speech pathology graduate at the

University of Queensland The University of Queensland is a Public university, public research university located primarily in Brisbane, the capital city of the Australian state of Queensland. Founded in 1909 by the Queensland parliament, UQ is one of the six sandstone ...

, and the first speech pathologist to work at the Royal Brisbane Hospital. Dornan has been attributed for her ground-breaking auditory verbal work which has assisted families and hearing-impaired children throughout Queensland. Hear and Say is now a global Hearing Health Education and Development Program with six centres across Queensland, including a telepractice for remote regions of Queensland. Dornan is the founder of Bionics Queensland (BioniQ) which was established to promote the development of the human bionic industry in Queensland. Dornan is also the founder of Human Bionics Interface, which an international network of bionics researchers, clinicians, businesses that share projects to delivery

bionics Bionics or biologically inspired engineering is the application of biological methods and systems found in nature to the study and design of engineering systems and modern technology. The word ''bionic'', coined by Jack E. Steele in August 195 ...

solutions. Dornan retired from the role as Executive Director, Hear and Say, and moved into an ambassador role in 2022.

Achievements

In 2017, Dornan was inducted into the

Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame The Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame recognises a set of the leaders in business and social development in Queensland, Australia. Inclusion in the hall of fame can be of individual people (living or dead), groups of people, and organisat ...

. In October 2017, Dornan was elected to the

Senate by the graduates of the university. In 2003 she received

for Queensland, and in 2010 the Suncorp Queenslander of the Year.

Criticism and controversy

In 2007, Dornan drew the ire of many in the Deaf community for labelling deafness as "a scourge" and for comparing advances in cochlear implants and hearing technology to the eradication of Polio, with one Deaf writer describing Dornan's remarks as "vilification" and accusing her of promoting "cultural genocide".

Awards

Churchill Fellowship 1992
* Member of the Order of Australia 1998 * Fellow of Speech Pathology Australia 1999 * Australian Medical Association (AMA) Award for Distinction for Services to Medicine 1999 * Australian of the Year for Queensland 2003 * Ernst & Young Australian Social Entrepreneur of the Year 2005 * Suncorp Queenslander of the Year 2010 * University of Queensland Alumnus of the Year 2011
Telstra Business Women’s Awards Business Woman of the Year for Queensland and White Pages Community and Government Award (2011)
*

Queensland Greats The Queensland Greats Awards recognise outstanding Queenslanders for their years of dedication and contribution to the development of the state and their role in strengthening and shaping the community in Queensland, Australia. The awards are p ...

2013 * Dame of Honour 2013 * Order of St John of Jerusalem (Knights Hospitaller) 2013 * Officer of the Order of Australia 2014 * Lord Mayor's Business Awards, Lifetime Achievement Award 2014 * McCullough Robertson Life Sciences Queensland Industry Excellence Award 2015 * Women in Technology Life Sciences Award 2016 * Brisbane Women in Business Award (Innovation and Technology) 2016 * Women in Technology Life Sciences Outstanding Achievement Award 2016 * Women in Business Innovation and Technology Award 2016 *

2017 * Queensland Senior Australian of the Year 2018

References

External links

State Library of Queensland - Dr Dimity Dornan AO digital story and oral history : Queensland Business Leaders Hall of Fame 2017

Women in Technology

Disability and carers

State Library of Queensland - The Petrie Family

State Library of Queensland - Alice with eyes a-shine

State Library of Queensland - Proquest - Social inclusion for children with hearing loss in listening and spoken Language early intervention: an exploratory study

State Library of Queensland - Proquest - Exploring the impact of spoken language on social inclusion for children with hearing loss ...

Hear and Say

Bionics Queensland

The University of Queensland School of Health and Rehabilitation Sciences - Profile - Dr Dimity Dornan, Adjunct Professor

Senior Australian of the Year Awards

Churchill Trust Fellow - Dimity Dornan
{{DEFAULTSORT:Dornan, Dimity Speech and language pathologists Living people Officers of the Order of Australia Australian businesspeople Australian of the Year Award winners Fellows of the Australian Academy of Technological Sciences and Engineering Year of birth missing (living people)