Heather Skirton trained as a nurse and midwife in Australia. Her interest in genetics began in Melbourne when she worked in a fetal diagnostic unit. In 1989, after moving to the United Kingdom (UK), she began working in specialist genetics and became a registered genetic counsellor. In 2000, after completing her PhD on the value of genetic counselling for families, she moved to an academic role as co-director of the MSc in genetic counselling at Cardiff. She has a long history of providing education to improve the competence in genetic healthcare in a wide range of health professionals within and beyond Europe. Her special interest has been to foster development of counselling skills for health professionals working in a genetics context. Heather’s research, resulting in over 170 peer-reviewed papers, has focussed on improvement of health services for families with genetic conditions, particularly in the field of prenatal genetic testing and screening, and development of professional competence in genetics. She was a partner in the EuroGentest project and project leader for the EU-funded Gen-Equip project (2014-2017) to provide genetics education for primary care professionals. Heather led the work to establish standards of education and practice for genetic nurses and genetic counsellors in Europe. She was the inaugural chair of the European Board of Medical Genetics. She has now retired as Professor of Applied Health Genetics at Plymouth University.