Melinda Cruz Turner is an award-winning consumer representative and not-for-profit founder, with significant experience amplifying the voices of families with babies born premature and sick. In 2005, Melinda founded the Miracle Babies Foundation following her own experience of having three premature babies, and during her 17 years at the Foundation, Miracle Babies became Australia’s largest and leading neonatal consumer group supporting babies born premature and sick, their families, and the hospitals caring for them. Since its inception, the Foundation has raised more than $10M to improve the lives of thousands of families.  

In 2023, Melinda co-founded the NICU Lived Network, an online video series to educate and help more parents and those born early or sick to make an impact to research, advocacy and clinical practice in NICUs.

Using her parent voice, she is a trusted lived experience expert to medical professionals and researchers. In 2012, she was awarded the title of Honorary Research Associate by the University of Sydney, Medical School and was the first parent to be invited onto NHMRC funded neonatal trials as an Associate Investigator (2012; LIFT Trial) and Chief Investigator (2019; WHEAT Trial).

Melinda’s continued involvement in research has contributed to a shift in Australia to involve more lived experience representatives in research from the earliest stages to ensure that the research addresses meaningful outcomes for patients and their families.

Melinda has played a key role in many trials, such as assisting in obtaining a waiver of consent for the TORPIDO 30/60 Trial by presenting to the Lead Ethics Committee (2018) and in supporting parents in Australia in the Family Integrated Care (FiCare) Trial to evaluate the effect of training parents to be primary caregivers for their babies at the bedside (2016).  

In 2014, Melinda joined the Perinatal Society of Australia & New Zealand's (PSANZ) Consumer Advisory Panel as the Inaugural Chair (2014-2016) returning as a member in 2024, and served on the PSANZ Clinical Trials executive committee 2017-2018. Melinda has been a member of the Australian Red Cross Lifeblood Milk Advisory Board since 2015 and is currently the Chair of the Lived Experience Committee for the PLATIPUS Trial, Co-Chair of the Working Group for the SurPre Trial, and Lead Parent Partner for the wamM Trial.  

To date, Melinda has co-authored 17 peer reviewed papers and contributed 6 published articles to THRIVE Global, including one outlining the benefits of Neonatal Point of Care Trials.

Melinda’s contributions to improving the experiences of premature babies and their families have been recognised with numerous awards, including the EY Social Entrepreneur of the Year award (2011) and the inaugural Australian Clinical Trials Alliance Consumer Involvement Award (2019).

Melinda is highly sought after as a speaker within Australia and internationally. She has presented at conferences including the Perinatal Society of Australia and New Zealand, Australian and New Zealand Neonatal Network Clinical Practice Improvement Conference, Congress of the Federation of Asia & Oceania Perinatal Societies (Malaysia), European Foundation for the Care of Newborn Infants Congress (Germany), and Family Integrated Care Conference (Canada).