In 1986, Green began her 20-year landmark study in the rural Queensland town of Nambour of sunscreen usage, where half of 1621 participants applied sunscreen daily and the rest maintained previous sporadic sunscreen application habits. These participants were followed initially for 10 years, with the results showing the application of sunscreen halved the chance of getting melanoma. This was perceived as a breakthrough in skin cancer research due to it demonstrating the application of sunscreen can prevent melanoma. In 1996, after Green returned from her UK studies, she became Head of QIMR's Epidemiology and Population Health Unit and was appointed a Senior Principal Research Fellow. A year later at the Wellcome Trust in London, she was the Visiting Medical Research Officer. From 2000 - 2011 Green acted as the deputy director to QIMR. During this time period she simultaneously operated in a variety of roles, in 2000 as the Head of Cancer and Population Studies Group in QIMR, in 2002 as a professor at the University of Queensland and professor at the Queensland University of Technology, in 2005 as adjunct professor at Griffith University, in 2009 as the professor in the Institute of Inflammation and Repair, and professor at the University of Manchester, and in 2010 as the acting director in QIMR. Since 2012 she has operated as a senior scientist in QIMR, except for a stint in 2014 where she operated as a senior research scientist at the Cancer Research UK Manchester Institute at the University of Manchester. Green has also done research into other cancers, such as esophageal cancer and ovarian cancer. Studies of these cancers occurred in 2008 in the research project 'Towards Cancer Control — population and molecular strategies'.
Personal life and education
Green was in her 20s a self-proclaimed "sun-worshipper". Green was educated at the University of Queensland in the 1970s, where after receiving 1st class honours in Medicine she worked for several years in Queensland hospitals before returning to the University of Queensland to receive in 1984 a PhD in Epidemiology. Green chose to study Medicine due to her then boyfriend's enjoyment of medical school, her personal enjoyment of biology, as well as the influence of scientists such as Marie Curie. She had previously considered studying English Literature or going into diplomatic service. In 1985, using a Neil Hamilton Fairley Postdoctoral Travelling Fellowship awarded by the Australian National Health and Medical Research Council, she travelled to the UK, where at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine she earned an MSc in Epidemiology. During this time she also served as a visiting Lecturer in Medicine at Harvard Medical School, Boston, USA. Green has served on many Australian research bodies, such as the Australian Cancer Research Foundation's Medical Research Advisory Committee, the National Public Health Partnership, and the National Health and Medical Research Council and was Chair of the NHMRC's Health Advisory Committee. Apart from Australian research bodies, she has also served on many committees at the International Agency for Research on Cancer in Lyon, France. These have included: Chair of the Working Group on Artificial UV and Skin Cancer in 2005, member of the Working Group on Code of Good Practice for IARC Researchers, and member of the Working Party for the Monograph on Radiation and Cancer in 2009. Green also serves as a member of the International Commission on Non-Ionising Radiation Protection and its Epidemiology Standing Committee. Green hikes as a hobby. She is a mother.
