Meet Stephen Corporal

Dr Stephen Corporal is an Eastern Arrernte man on his mother’s side with family connections to many other First Nations Peoples, He was born Bwgcolman in Townsville and now lives on Jagera Country in Southeast Queensland. He has been around Southeast Queensland for many years and worked in and been on Boards of community organisations in the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander community.  

After working in community for many years he ended up going to Uni and completing a Bachelor of Social Work and Bachelor of Arts (Psychology) degrees at UQ in 2003. After which he then worked as a Social Worker at Centrelink while completing a Masters of Social Policy at JCU in 2005.  

Stephen started work at the University of Queensland in 2005 at the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Unit. He enrolled in a PhD about Indigenous Superannuation in 2007 at UQ. He withdrew from the PHD to focus on Recruitment pathways of Indigenous students into the UQ School of Medicine where he was seconded to. 

Stephen then left UQ to work as a Project Officer at Griffith University Health Executive to work on setting up pathways into health courses including medicine. He started and completed this PhD looking at Identity, Roles and Expectations of Indigenous Health students at a Health Faculty in an Australian University. He completed a Prof Cert in Indigenous Research at University of Melbourne and is currently completing the Grad Cert in Indigenous Leadership and Research at the University of Melbourne. Stephen is currently a Lecturer B in the School of Health Sciences and Social Work teaching First Australians and Social Justice and other Social Work courses.  

Stephen has been on the Board of Indigenous Allied Health Australia for 6 years because he has an ongoing commitment to increase the Health Workforce of Indigenous people.