Centre Members
Professor Kate Fitz-Gibbon
Director
Expert in law reform, adolescent family violence, intimate partner violence and homicide
Associate Professor Bridget Harris
Deputy Director
Expert in domestic and family violence, technology-facilitated abuse, violence in non-urban places
Professor Sandra Walklate
Lead Researcher
International expert on victim experience, family violence and policing
Professor JaneMaree Maher
Lead Researcher
Expert in gender equality and access, gender and family structures
Dr Naomi Pfitzner
Lead Researcher
Expert in family violence prevention and response and the engagement of men in the primary prevention of intimate partner violence
Professor Marie Segrave
Lead Researcher
Expert in gender and trafficking, gender and migration
Dr Jasmine McGowan
Lecturer
Expert in gender and sexuality, women with disability experiencing family violence, project management and strategic engagements
Jasmine Mead
Program Officer
Rosie Batty
Senior Team Leader (Partnerships)
Emeritus Professor Jude McCulloch
Researcher
Expert in violence against women, policing and community justice
Dr Michael Maguire
Professor of Professional Practice, Monash University and Honorary Professor, George Mitchell Institute for Peace, Security and Justice, The Queens University of Belfast.
Former Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland and Chief Inspector of Criminal Justice in Northern Ireland.
Postdoctoral Research Fellows
Dr Nicola Helps
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on perpetrator interventions
Dr Shih Joo (Siru) Tan
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on migrant and refugee women
Dr Ellen Reeves
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on criminalisation and policy reform
Dr Stefani Vasil
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on migration policies, family violence and women's safety
Dr Chloe Keel
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on migration and safety.
Dr Hyein (Ellen) Cho
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on culturally and linguistically diverse communities.
Dr Rebecca Buys
Postdoctoral Research Fellow on political, policy and activist processes to address family violence.
Adjunct Professors
Professor Walter S. DeKeseredy
Walter S. DeKeseredy is Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Director of the Research Center on Violence, and Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He has published 27 books, over 110 scientific journal articles and 90 scholarly book chapters on violence against women and other social problems. In 2008, the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma gave him the Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award. He also jointly received the 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division on Women and Crime and the 2007 inaugural UOIT Research Excellence Award. In 1995, he received the Critical Criminologist of the Year Award from the ASC’s Division on Critical Criminology (DCC) and in 2008 the DCC gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, he received the Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences' (ACJS) Section on Critical Criminal Justice and in 2015, he received the Career Achievement Award from the ASC's Division on Victimology. In 2017, he received the Impact Award from the ACJS’s section on Victimology and the Robert Jerrin Book Award from the ASC’s Division on Victimology.
Walter is the Anna Deane Carlson Endowed Chair of Social Sciences, Director of the Research Center on Violence, and Professor of Sociology at West Virginia University. He has published 27 books, over 110 scientific journal articles and 90 scholarly book chapters on violence against women and other social problems. In 2008, the Institute on Violence, Abuse and Trauma gave him the Linda Saltzman Memorial Intimate Partner Violence Researcher Award. He also jointly received the 2004 Distinguished Scholar Award from the American Society of Criminology's (ASC) Division on Women and Crime and the 2007 inaugural UOIT Research Excellence Award. In 1995, he received the Critical Criminologist of the Year Award from the ASC’s Division on Critical Criminology (DCC) and in 2008 the DCC gave him the Lifetime Achievement Award. In 2014, he received the Critical Criminal Justice Scholar Award from the Academy of Criminal Justice Sciences' (ACJS) Section on Critical Criminal Justice and in 2015, he received the Career Achievement Award from the ASC's Division on Victimology. In 2017, he received the Impact Award from the ACJS’s section on Victimology and the Robert Jerrin Book Award from the ASC’s Division on Victimology.
Professor Leigh Goodmark
Leigh Goodmark is the Marjorie Cook Professor of Law and Co-Director of the Clinical Law Program at the University of Maryland Francis King Carey School of Law. Professor Goodmark co-directs the Clinical Law Program, teaches Family Law, Gender and the Law, and Gender Violence and the Law, and directs the Gender Violence Clinic, a clinic providing direct representation in matters involving intimate partner abuse, sexual assault, trafficking, and other cases involving gender violence. Professor Goodmark’s scholarship focuses on intimate partner violence. From 2003 to 2014, Professor Goodmark was on the faculty at the University of Baltimore School of Law, where she served as Director of Clinical Education and Co-director of the Center on Applied Feminism. From 2000 to 2003, Professor Goodmark was the Director of the Children and Domestic Violence Project at the American Bar Association Center on Children and the Law. Before joining the Center on Children and the Law, Professor Goodmark represented battered women and children in the District of Columbia in custody, visitation, child support, restraining order, and other civil matters. Professor Goodmark is a graduate of Yale University and Stanford Law School.
Professor Silke Meyer
Dr Silke Meyer is a criminologist and social worker by training, bringing practical and theoretical expertise to her research, teaching and writing. Her research centres on different aspects of domestic and family violence, including women and children’s safety, wellbeing and recovery, men’s accountability in their role as perpetrators and fathers, experiences specific to Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander communities and the role of domestic and family violence-informed practice in child protection, policing and court proceedings. Silke has delivered evaluations for a number of government and non-government organisations, including police, child protection, perpetrator interventions and victim support services. She currently receives funding from ANROWS, the Australian Institute of Criminology, the Victorian Law Foundation and the Department of Social Services. Silke is a Subject Matter Expert for the Raising Children Network and a former non-government member of the inaugural Qld Domestic and Family Violence Death Review and Advisory Board. She provides independent subject matter expert reports in DFV related death reviews involving. Her research has been published and cited across disciplines and continues to inform policy and practice in areas of victim, perpetrator and family-related service delivery.
Dr Heather Nancarrow
For forty years, Dr Heather Nancarrow has worked to address violence against women, including in community services and advocacy, government policy, and research. Heather recently retired from full time work with her most recent role being the inaugural CEO of Australia’s National Research Organisation for Women’s Safety (ANROWS). She was also the foundation Director of the Queensland Centre for Domestic and Family Violence Research at CQ University. Heather has held many leadership roles at the state and national level, including Deputy Chair of the National Council to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children, which produced Time for Action, the blue-print for COAG’s National Plan to Reduce Violence against Women and their Children 2010-2022. Heather has a MA (Hons) and a PhD in Criminology and Criminal Justice. Her scholarship is focused on justice responses to violence against women. Her book, Unintended consequences of domestic violence law: Gendered Aspirations and Racialised Realities was published in 2019. She has also published several book chapters and numerous peer-reviewed articles related to justice for victim/survivors of domestic and family violence.