The Female Athlete Network
The Female Athlete Network
The Female Athlete Network is for everyone!
It is for the athletes, everywhere.
It is for the weekend warriors, the teens building dreams
and the mum’s sneaking workouts on a toddler schedule.
It is for the parent, the sibling and the partner.
The Female Athlete Network is here to start the conversation about training, performance and all things female athlete health, no matter what level of sport you play.
It is here to break down barriers.
It is a platform to seek information, engage with holistic athlete health and wellbeing support and referral to in-the-know practitioners who can help the female athlete on their path to peak performance.
Period.
Our People
Emily Shears
Founder of the Female Athlete Network, an Australian credentialled consultant pharmacist with a holistic perspective and post graduate qualifications in exercise sport science, including a Master of Education. Emily Shears is a highly driven and passionate health and wellbeing leader. Emily is Board Certified as a Professional with both the Australian Society of Lifestyle Medicine and the International Board of Lifestyle Medicine and also a conferred Fellow of the Australian Society of Lifestyle Medicine and Fellow of Australian and New Zealand College of Advanced Pharmacy (Generalist, Education). Emily is currently completing International Olympic Committee Drugs in Sport Certification studies.
Emily grew up in Geelong, Victoria, and has played just about every sport you can think of but had the most success with rowing and athletics. Completing Pharmacy studies at University of Sydney on sports scholarship, including a stint at the University of Hawaii and being part of the Inaugural Australian Women’s Skeleton Team talent identification program for the 2006 Torino Winter Olympics, she is very familiar with the pressures of the high-performance sport environment.
Emily has worked across Australia as a pharmacist for over 20 years, and has been in high performance sport for the past 10 years.
As a pharmacist, Emily has seen firsthand the gap in knowledge that young women have when it comes to their own bodies, not knowing what is normal, and what is not, and this issue is amplified when you add the complexities of being an athlete…an athlete in Emily’s eyes is anyone who exercises with intention.
As a former athlete and performance health consultant for individuals and several professional sports teams Australia-wide. Emily is ensuring that women athletes everywhere have access to evidence informed information about their bodies...Menstrual health is key to overall health and women should feel empowered and educated and not shamed by how incredible their bodies are, it is time to open the conversation, for everyone.
Everyone deserves to feel great and to perform well, no matter their chosen pursuit.
Shenae Keleher
Founder of The Sport Press, former Chief Executive Officer of the WestVic Academy of Sport and current Performance Lifestyle Adviser at the Victorian Institute of Sport, with a double bachelors degree in Exercise Sport Science and Business Sport Management, Shenae Keleher is a motivated individual, extremely passionate about helping athletes on their journey within their chosen sport.
Growing up, Shenae found herself involved in a variety of sports, most being individual through the likes of Swimming and Taekwondo. Although she enjoyed netball for the social aspect, she gained a great understanding and insight into the journey of an individual sport at a high level. Achieving her black belt in Taekwondo, competing at national and international fighting competitions and copping a few black eyes along the way!
Her previous experience includes a twelve month Internship at the Victorian Institute of Sport as well as three years at the Barwon Sports Academy and two years as the Marketing and Communications Assistant with Triathlon Victoria.
“I met Em years back when she joined the Barwon team. I still remember the phone call from her in the middle of lockdown in 2020, with her idea for the FAN, she asked if I would be keen to join her on the journey and with out a doubt I said 100%!
There is such a gap in not only the sporting world but society in general when it comes to education about female health, especially periods. People, even female’s just don’t have enough conversations about it. Em is changing and leading the way and I am so excited she picked me to join her on the adventure!”
Shenae and The Sport Press team assist The Female Athlete Network with social media and digital support.