Our People
Cathy Humphreys is a leading expert on domestic violence and child abuse. As an honorary professor, she continues to work with the research team. She is an author of more than 250 publications. Her specialisation in domestic violence provides a lens to understand intersections with other fields including substance use and child protection. Research across more than 80 projects, includes 7 projects partnering with David Mandel and the Safe & Together Institute attending to children in the context of domestic violence. CEVAW (Centre for the Elimination of Violence Against Women), an ARC Centre for Excellence continues research on substance use coercion. 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. Jasmin is a Researcher and PhD Candidate in the Department of Social Work, University of Melbourne. She works on projects focused on domestic family and sexual violence, through applied and participatory approaches. Through her PhD, Jasmin is exploring language and documentation practices as part of service responses to intimate partner and family violence, with a focus on discursive constructions of accountability. 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 Viviana Sastre-Gomez is a researcher at the University of Melbourne specialising in quantitative and computational approaches to understanding and preventing domestic and family violence and child sexual exploitation. Her work draws on large-scale administrative datasets to examine patterns of risk, including the intersection of sexual and criminal exploitation and violence against women. In a field often dominated by qualitative approaches, her research brings a strong quantitative focus to inform evidence-based policy and practice. She contributes to the DICE Project and has led analyses informing UNFPA programmes across multiple countries. 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. Dr Heshani Samantha De Silva is an early-career researcher whose PhD examined family violence within South Asian Australian communities. She has contributed to a range of projects at the University of Melbourne, including the FVPP Evaluation, kNOwVAWdata course, WEAVERS, MAEVe and SHEBA. Since 2018, she has also taught and facilitated courses in this field. Alongside her academic work, she practises as a clinical psychologist in Sydney and serves as a modern slavery and forced-marriage research fellow at Anti-Slavery Australia. She is a child survivor of family violence and is part of the WEAVERs group. After completing her MSW, Steph worked at Child Protection and a specialist sexual assault service as a counsellor/advocate. Steph is completing her PhD at the University of Melbourne as a MacKillop Power to Kids scholar. Her PhD is a critical realist analysis of responses to children's harmful sexual behaviour in schools. Nicolás is a psychologist, narrative practitioner, PhD candidate, and researcher in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. His work sits across family violence, behavior change interventions, and qualitative evaluation, with particular interest in accountability, victim-survivor safety, and how people make sense of violence and change. He is currently part of the Pathway for Change evaluation, a longitudinal study of Family Violence Behaviour Change Programs in Victoria. His broader research interests include narrative practice, policing, memory, state violence, and the ways institutional and community responses can better recognize harm, support safety, and create conditions for accountability and repair. Sherry is a Research Assistant and a Masters student in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne. She supports projects focused on family violence, as well as kNOwVAWdata course. She contributes as a consumer representative on the Quality & Safety Committee at the Royal Women's Hospital, and is passionate about trauma-informed care, maternal mental health, and systemic advocacy. She has a particular interest in building inclusivity and recognition that data on sensitive issues often fails to capture the diverse realities and disparities experienced across social class. Van is an early career researcher in the areas of domestic and family violence (DFV) and alcohol and other drugs (AOD). Van is a qualified social worker with experience as an AOD clinician, formerly working with clients and families who experience problematic substance use and other co-occurring issues including DFV, homelessness and mental ill-health. Van currently works as a Research Fellow with the ARC Centre of Excellence for the Elimination of Violence Against Women (CEVAW) on the Prioritising Intersectoral Practice: Strategies and Innovations (PIPSI) project. The project aims to enhance workforce capacity to provide safe and seamless supports for families who experience co-occurring AOD and DFV issues. Casey is a PhD student in the Department of Social Work at the University of Melbourne through CEVAW. Her research examines the formal and informal pathways that Samoan (Pasifika) families use when seeking support for sensitive issues including domestic and family violence and alcohol and other drug use. She has experience in specialist family violence service provision and as a training facilitator with the Safer Families Centre. Her Master’s research evaluated a pilot project of domestic violence advocates being co-located at QLD police stations. Her research interests include domestic and family violence prevention and holistic and collaborative approaches to service provision.
