Shelley Potter is Professor of Surgical Oncology at Bristol Medical School and Consultant Oncoplastic Breast Surgeon at North Bristol NHS Trust.

She attended Bristol Medical School and completed Basic Surgical Training in Bristol before completing a PhD exploring the feasibility of clinical trials in breast reconstruction.  She completed her Higher Surgical Training as an Academic Clinical Lecturer in the Severn Deanery before being awarded a highly prestigious National Training Interface Group Oncoplastic Breast Surgery Fellowship in Liverpool.  She returned to Bristol as an NIHR Clinician Scientist and Consultant Senior Lecturer in August 2017 and became a Professor in August 2023.

Her research focuses on improving outcomes for women undergoing breast cancer surgery through the design and delivery of high-quality, patient-centred collaborative research.

As a trainee and Chair of the Mammary Fold Academic and Research Collaborative (MFAC), she led several large-scale national collaborative breast surgery projects including iBRA, iBRA-2 and TeaM. These studies collectively recruited over 5,000 patients from over 80 centres across the UK and helped to establish an evidence base to support the practice of oncoplastic and reconstructive surgery. She is currently Chief Investigator for the Best-BRA, Brighter, ANTHEM and Pre-BRA studies.

More recently, she had developed an interest in breast cancer treatment de-escalation studies and is Chief Investigator for the NIHR HTA funded TADPOLE study which aims to compare targeted axillary dissection and axillary node clearance in patients with node positive breast cancer having primary surgery. She also co-led the recent BIG-NCTN PRECEDENT project which aimed to improve reporting of locoregional therapy in neoadjuvant systemic therapy trials by developing a core outcome set.

Her national roles include Royal College of Surgeons of England Surgical Specialty Lead in Breast Surgery and Secretary to the British Breast Group.