Telphia Joseph, a Wajarri Yamatji woman from Western Australia, is an Associate Lecturer at the University of New South Wales School of Population Health and Community Medicine, where she teaches Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander health focus subjects. In 1990, when she was photographed by Michael Riley for his series Portraits by a Window, she was a dancer with the Aboriginal Islander Dance Theatre, established in 1975 and a central part of the vibrant Aboriginal arts community in the inner west. She was also a model with Lee Madden's Promotions and Model Agency in Redfern, which promoted Aboriginal models on catwalks internationally. Following this she studied community development and worked in national Indigenous health advocacy programs, including a liaison position between the National Immunisation Committee and service providers offering immunisation programs for Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander people. Her Master of Philosophy from the University of Sydney involved an evaluation of immunisation activities provided by Aboriginal Medical Services and their reporting procedures to the Australian Childhood Immunisation Register.
