Emeritus Professor Cheryl Dissanayake AM

Emeritus Professor Cheryl Dissanayake AM was the Founding Director and inaugural Olga Tennison Endowed Chair in Autism Research at La Trobe University. She established Australia’s first research centre dedicated to autism established in 2008, made possible by a generous donation from Mrs Olga Tennison OAM and matching funds from La Trobe University. The continued growth and success of the Olga Tennison Autism Research Centre, bolstered by a $45 million gift from Mrs Tennison in her will, are a testament to both her visionary leadership and the enduring impact of her work.

Professor Dissanayake has been an autism researcher since 1984, when she began her PhD at Monash University following her undergraduate degree in Psychology. She undertook a postdoctoral fellowship in the Sigman lab at UCLA prior to establishing an autism research program upon joining La Trobe University in 1996, where she spent 28 years, prior to her retirement in 2024.

Professor Dissanayake was instrumental in bringing together Victorian and Australian autism researchers, having co-founded the Autism Victoria Autism Research Group (2003), the Australasian Autism Research Alliance (2005), the Australasian Autism Research Collaboration (2009) and the Australasian Society for Autism Research (2011). The latter is a member-based society, which she served as vice-President until 2020, when she was honoured with a Lifetime Membership. She was on the bid team and a Project Leader for the Cooperative Research Centre for Living with Autism (2013-2021).

Professor Dissanayake has been recognised as a Research Field Leader for six consecutive years by The Australian (2018-2023) and as one of nine Global Research Leaders in 2020. She was amongst the first ten scholars to be inaugurated as a Fellow of the International Society for Autism Research (2018) and was elected vice-President of INSAR in 2019. She served on its Senior Global Leaders Committee, representing the Western Pacific region, and chaired its Fellows Committee. She was one of only 25 scholars worldwide, and the sole Australian, invited to participate in The Lancet Commission on Autism from 2019 to 2021.

In 2022, Professor Dissanayake was elected as a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences Australia, and was recognised with an Order of Australia (AM) in the same year for ‘significant service to medical research, to tertiary education, and to professional societies’.