Winifred Cullis CBE[2] (2 June 1875 – 13 November 1956) was a physiologist and academic, and the first woman to hold a professorial chair at a medical school.

[3] Born in Gloucester, Winifred was the youngest daughter of the six children of Frederick John and Louisa (née Corbett) Cullis.

[4] She entered Newnham College, Cambridge in 1896, financed by a Sidgwick scholarship, and achieved a second in both parts of the natural sciences tripos (1899 and 1900).

She was awarded DSc by London University in 1908 for Experiments upon the isolated mammalian heart, especially with regard to the action of defibrinated blood upon it.

[5] While working with T G Brodie, her physiological research focused on the mechanisms of secretion of urine and of gas exchanges in the heart and intestine.

With time, her interests changed to considering healthy living in people such as through sports science and effects of fatigue on factory workers.

[10] In 1931 she gave support to a public subscription for building a ward in the new Royal Free Hospital to be named in memory of Mary Scharlieb.

She was based in New York in the USA from 1941 to 1943 as Director of the women's section of the British information services and moved to the Middle East in 1944–5 to lecture to the Royal Air Force.

As an example of her action in this area, she devised programmes for physical education and ballet teachers in schools run by the London County Council.

These included the clinical management committee of the Institute of Child Psychology, the council of the National Institute of Industrial Psychology and the Home Office committee on the two-shift system for women and young persons, the British Association for the Advancement of Science, the Trades Union Congress committee on scientific planning of industry, the Central Council of Recreative Physical Training, the King Edward VII Hospital Fund, the BBC Council for Adult Education, and the governing bodies of the Royal Academy of Dancing and Chelsea Polytechnic.