Associate ProfessorMarijke Bassani

Associate Professor Marijke Bassani is a Lama Lama/Lamalama, Binthi Warra (Guugu Yimithirr Nation) and Bulgun Warra Aboriginal woman from Cape York Peninsula, where she was born and raised. She is multilingual, with Guugu Yimithirr as her first language, East Cape York Kriol as her second, and English as her third. Beginning her career as a Commercial litigator more than a decade ago, Marijke is now an international Human rights Lawyer, scholar and advocate. Her work focuses on Discrimination and Human rights relating to Indigeneity, race, gender, sexuality and cultural heritage. Across her career she has worked to advance diversity, equity and inclusion within the corporate, government, not-for-profit, higher education, and social justice legal sectors. 

Marijke recently completed a cross-institutional PhD in International law under the joint supervision of UNSW Law & Justice Sydney, and the UC Berkeley Center for Race & Gender where she was Visiting Scholar and served as Human rights Lawyer in-residence, becoming the first Australian to hold the latter position. In collaboration with the International Work Group for Indigenous Affairs, Marijke led the drafting and delivery of a statement on Indigenous LGBTQIA+ rights presented at the 2023 session of the United Nations Expert Mechanism on the Rights of Indigenous Peoples. Marijke’s global leadership and humanitarian work has been recognised by the University of Oxford, where she has authored several publications and was recently selected to join the Oxford Intersections Gender Justice Project (2026). Now the inaugural Associate Dean, Indigenous at Deakin University’s Faculty of Science, Engineering and Built Environment, Associate Professor Bassani leads the advancement of diversity, equity and inclusion while deepening the integration of Indigenous knowledges and perspectives across STEM and higher education.