Associate ProfessorMary Iliadis

Dr Mary Iliadis is an Associate Professor of Criminology at Deakin University, and founding co-convenor of the Deakin Network Against Gendered Violence - Deakin's first University-wide, interdisciplinary research network addressing gender-based violence. She is also a member of Deakin's Cyber Research and Innovation Centre. 

A/Prof Iliadis is an award winning criminologist, recognised for her research expertise on legal and non-legal regulation and responses to domestic, family and sexual violence. She pioneered the first transnational study on victim-focused reforms that offer victim-survivors of sexual violence enhanced rights to participation and information in criminal justice systems across Australia, England and Ireland. Her work is violence- and trauma-informed, and employs culturally safe and responsive principles to ensure and prioritise victim-survivors' wellbeing.

A/Prof Iliadis leads competitively funded research projects in the areas of trauma-informed responses to sexual offence victim-survivors through the role of independent legal representation to safeguard private information from use in the courtroom (medical/counselling records, prior sexual experiences, digital communications). She is also researching how technologies are weaponised to perpetrate violence, as well as harnessed by advocates, victim-survivors and practitioners to enhance responses to gendered violence. This includes exploring how police body-worn cameras are used in domestic and family violence callouts, whether CCTV provides safety and security to victim-survivors, and the nature and extent of technology-faciliated abuse in the Pacific (Fiji, Tonga, Vanuatu).

A/Prof Iliadis has a strong track record of high impact publications that have informed national and international commissions of inquiry. She has been cited extensively and invited for consultation and input into the Australian Law Reform Commission's Inquiry into Justice System Responses to Sexual Offences, Northern Ireland's Gillen Review into Sexual Offences (2021), Women's Safety and Justice Taskforce: Hear Her Voice (2022), Royal Commission into Family Violence (2016), Victorian Law Reform Commission's report on Improving the Justice System Response to Sexual Offences (2021), Victorian Law Reform Commission's report on The Role of Victims of Crime in the Criminal Trial, among others. 

Awards

Deakin University's Vice-Chancellor's Award for Multidisciplinary Research Collaboration 2025

Deakin University's Faculty of Arts and Education Mid-Career Researcher Award 2025

Deakin University's Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Research Excellence 2022

World Society of Victimology Award 2022

Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Award for Outstanding Police Research 2022

Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology New Scholar Prize 2019