Shelley Peers is Director of the Australian Academy of Science primary school program ‘Primary Connections: linking science with literacy’. She is a qualified medical biochemist and primary school teacher, and holds a Master of Education (Research), her thesis focussing on teacher professional growth. She has also held roles as a syllabus writer, university lecturer, and curriculum developer.

Shelley is a Churchill Fellow; a Fellow of the International Society for Design and Development in Education (ISDDE); 2010 Outstanding Alumni for Education for QUT, Australia; 2012 Purkwa Laureate, a Grand Prize of the French Academy of Sciences; and a finalist in The Australian Innovation Challenge Awards 2012. She has made presentations at Inter Academy Panel meetings and other events in Indonesia, Finland, South Africa, France, UK, USA and Chile.

Primary Connections consists of a professional learning program and curriculum resources. and has won The Australian Awards for Excellence in Educational Publishing. It was funded by the Australian Government (2004 – 2012).  Nobel physics laureate Brian Schmidt donated $ 100,000 of his prize money to the program in 2011