Our People
Professor Cathy Humphreys is a leading social work researcher in the area of domestic and family violence. She leads the skilled team of domestic violence researchers focused on building the evidence to support safety, accountability and strengthened collaborative responses. She is a well published author of more than 160 refereed journal articles focused across all aspects of domestic and family violence.
Associate Professor Kristin Diemer specialises in global measures of violence against women including prevalence, attitudes and incident rates. She is a co-author of several major Australian studies including Australians' Attitudes to Violence Against Women and The Victorian Family Violence Database Trend Analysis of reporting rates.
Dr Margaret Kertesz is a senior research fellow at the University of Melbourne. and has worked in the Child and Family Welfare sector for two decades with specific interests in child protection, out-of-home care and family violence. Her experience involves applied research and knowledge translation, in close collaboration with service providers, to promote good practice and the systems that support it.
Dr Gemma McKibbin is Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne. Gemma has a PhD focused on harmful sexual behaviour carried out by children and young people, and a background in gender studies. Gemma works closely with Professor Cathy Humphreys on a program of work aimed at enhancing the child sexual abuse prevention and response agenda. Key industry partners in these action research projects include MacKillop Family Services and Jesuit Social Services.
David has worked in various research roles which have all been focused on improving the physical, social, emotional and cultural outcomes for people in our communities. He has a strong background in providing research and evaluation related services to both not-for-profit and government agencies. David is also a PhD Candidate, who is investigating the role of sport and physical activities in Australian prisons.
Shawana Andrews is a Trawlwoolway woman of tebrakuna, north eastern Tasmania. Shawana is a Senior Lecturer and Teaching Specialist in Indigenous Health, and a social work and public health researcher currently completing her PhD on Aboriginal women’s experiences of family violence. She has worked extensively with the Victorian Aboriginal community and has published and presented widely about Aboriginal health, family violence and research.
Jasmin is a Research Assistant at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Social Work. She works on projects focused on domestic and family violence, and violence against women, and has previously worked in the School of Languages and Linguistics in sociolinguistics and language archiving. Jasmin’s Honours research focused on linguistic constructions of agency and subjectivity in relation to violence against women. Her research interests include social language use and communication in relation to gendered violence, social change and subjectivity, including analysis of representations, conversation and discourse.
Julie is a Research Assistant at the Department of Social Work. She is working with Dr Gemma McKibbin researching harmful sexual behaviour in children and young people and has recently joined the Disrupting Child Exploitation (DICE) project. Julie has a background in telecommunications engineering and has spent over 17 years working in education and international development roles around the world. She is currently studying for a Master of Social Work at the University of Melbourne.
Jess has 24 years’ experience in aid and development, in Asia, Pacific, Africa and Europe. She has worked in emergency operations for Nepal earthquake, South Ossetia and Ukraine, and post-conflict recovery in Angola and Liberia, most recently as IFRC Deputy Head of Emergency Operations in Ukraine. Jess holds a Master of Assessment and Evaluation, completing her thesis on the Real-Time Evaluation of Humanitarian Response. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Political Science) and Postgraduate Bachelor of Social Work. She has delivered practice papers for the Australasian Evaluation Society Conference, Australia and New Zealand Disaster and Emergency Management Conference and ALNAP in London.
Dr Anneliese Spiteri is a Research Fellow at the Department of Social Work, the University of Melbourne. She has worked at the University of Melbourne for several years across fields including intimate partner abuse, post-traumatic stress, and clinical psychology. She has particular interest in qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. Anneliese has just completed a PhD in Youth Mental Health at the University of Melbourne.
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Anna is a Research Assistant at the Department of Social Work. She has worked at the University of Melbourne for several years in research and tutoring roles, focusing on areas of domestic and family violence, perpetrator interventions, social, developmental, personality psychology, neuropsychology and psychopathology. She is particularly interested in combining research findings with clinical applications and is currently completing a PhD project in Clinical Psychology.
Larissa is an Associate Lecturer in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne and the subject coordinator of the UniMelb graduate coursework elective Domestic and Family Violence. Larissa is also a qualified social worker currently working therapeutically with children, young people and adults who have experienced domestic and family violence and abuse. Previously, Larissa has worked in specialist family violence services in crisis, refuge and justice settings supporting infants, children, young people and their caregivers.
Dr David Rose is Senior Lecturer in Social Work at the University of Melbourne. He specialises in program design and evaluation in complex human services contexts including domestic and family violence. He has experience consulting to government and non-government organisations on program evaluation and direct practice experience in the areas of mental health, alcohol and other drug treatment and the criminal justice system.
Mael is a research assistant at the University of Melbourne in the Department of Social Work and is currently working on the KODY evaluation.
Mael completed the Master of Economics at the University of Melbourne in 2015 and subsequently worked as data manager on the evaluation of the Early Years Education Program (EYEP). He is particularly interested in child development, personality & social psychology, and spirituality.
Hanh Tu Duc Nguyen is a Research Assistant and PhD Candidate in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. As a social work researcher, Hanh’s focus is on student wellbeing, student equity, international education, and higher education policy. Hanh is particularly interested in mixed-method research, as well as participatory action research and co-design methods. In the VAWC team, Hanh is working in the KODY Project, contributing to qualitative data collection, analysis, and publication.
Viviana is a Research Assistant in the Department of Social Work. She collaborates with Professor Kristin Diemer on domestic and family violence and violence against women-related research projects, with a primary focus on qualitative and quantitative data collection and analysis. Additionally, Viviana is pursuing a PhD at the Complex Human Data Hub (CHDH) at MSPS, with her research focusing on event cognition and technology's role in comprehending cognitive architecture and interventions. She also researched social-emotional and cognitive development before beginning her doctoral studies, primarily centring on the Theory of Mind, false beliefs, and emotions.
Genevieve has worked in the Child Protection Field since 2016. She has worked as a Child Protection Worker for Queensland Child Safety for 5 years. She then worked as a Senior Training Officer, training Queensland Child Safety Officers and Queensland Police Detectives within the Child Protection Investigation Unit. Genevieve is passionate about better supporting child victim/survivors of sexual abuse and identifying best practice preventions and interventions for children and young people who are being sexually exploited online.
Sophie is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne, collaborating with Dr Gemma McKibbin and Professor Cathy Humphreys on the Disrupting Child Sexual Exploitation (DICE) Project. Sophie has a background in both Psychology and Criminology, and possesses expertise in mixed methods research. Sophie completed her PhD in Criminology at the University of Cambridge on the topic of child sexual abuse perpetrated in co-offending contexts. A specific focus was given to the application of social network analysis to perpetrator and victim networks.
Dr Heshani Samantha De Silva is an early career researcher who completed her PhD on family violence amongst South Asian Australians. She currently works and has worked within a range of projects at the University of Melbourne (kNOwVAWdata course, WEAVERS, MAEVe, Sheba and FVPP Evaluation). She also works as a clinical psychology registrar at a private practice in Sydney and as a co-facilitator at the University of Adelaide for the GDP/GDPA course.