Kate Fitz-Gibbon is Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and a Professor of Social Sciences in the Faculty of Arts, Monash University (Victoria, Australia). She also holds affiliated research appointments with the School of Law and Social Justice at University of Liverpool (Honorary Research Fellow, 2016-2020) and the Research Center on Violence at West Virginia University (2019).

Kate’s qualifications include a PhD in Criminology (2012), Masters of Human Rights Law (2019), Graduate Certificate of Higher Education (2013) and she is a Graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. Kate conducts research in the area of domestic and family violence, femicide, responses to all forms of violence against women, and the impacts of law reform in Australia and internationally. This research is undertaken with a key focus on issues relating to gender, constructions of responsibility and justice. The findings of Kate’s research have been published in books, academic journals, funded reports and presented at national and international criminology conferences.

Kate has advised on homicide law reform, family violence and youth justice reviews in several Australian and international jurisdictions. Her research has been cited by the High Court of Australia. In 2016, Kate was appointed as a member of the Victorian Government’s Expert Advisory Committee on Perpetrator Interventions and in 2018 was appointed to the Respect Victoria inaugural Board of Directors. In 2021, she was appointed Chair of Respect Victoria by the Victorian Government. She is the former Chair of the Barwon Centre against Sexual Assault and in 2015 she was awarded a Churchill Fellowship to examine innovative legal responses to intimate femicide.

In her role as a Co-Investigator for the Vulnerability & Policing Futures Research Centre, she is co-lead of the domestic abuse and policing stream. This work will examine the challenges posed for policing policies and practices. Kate is also a member of the Centre’s International Advisory Board.