Ninham's uncle Roger Ninham, was a dual Olympian rower for Australia. He competed at Rome 1960 and Tokyo 1964. He had won the King's Cup for West Australia in 1960 and the President's Cup in 1961. Her grandfather William Ninham a boat builder, stroked South Australian eights which contested the King's Cup in 1932, 1933 and 1935. As a Perth-based craftsman of rowing shells he had long associations with the West Australian Rowing Club and the Fremantle Rowing Club.
Club and state rowing
Sally Ninham's senior club rowing was from the Australian National University Boat Club and the Melbourne University Boat Club. She won a New South Wales state championship title in 1989 in a lightweight coxless four. She contested national titles at the Australian Rowing Championships in the lightweight pair and the lightweight coxless four on a number of occasions. In 1989 in ANU colours she placed second in the pair and in the four. In 1990, racing for MUBC she placed fifth in the pair and fourth in the four. Ninham's sole state representation for Victoria came in 1990 when she was selected in the bow seat of the lightweight coxless four which contested and won the Victoria Cup at the Interstate Regatta within the Australian Rowing Championships.
International representative rowing
Ninham made her Australian representative debut in 1989 in the lightweight coxless four. They raced at the Lucerne International Regatta to a fourth place and then at the 1989 World Rowing Championships in Bled they again finished fourth. The following year at the 1990 World Rowing Championships in Lake Barrington, Ninham held the three seat in the women's lightweight four which won the silver medal. That same crew also raced that year at the 1990 Canadian Henley Regatta and won the lightweight coxless four title.
Scholar, author and personal
An independent scholar and author affiliated with Melbourne's La Trobe University, Ninham studied at the Australian National University and La Trobe University, in Germany at the University of Hamburg and she undertook some studies at the University of California Berkeley. She obtained a BA and a PhD. Her first published work was “A Cohort of Pioneers” a study on Australia's growing intellectual, social, and research cultures since WWII. Her second book “Ten African Cardinals” tracked conversations with ten of the fourteen African Cardinals of the Roman Catholic Church. Ninham is married to James Peters, himself a national Australian champion lightweight rower who also coached at the Australian national level. They have five children. Marion Jennifer Peters, William “Billy” Rory Peters, Moira “Nevie” Genevieve Peters, Susan Eleanor Peters and Naomi Maeve Peters
