Maria Dimopoulos AM

Born in Niki, Greece in 1965, Maria Dimopolous completed an Arts/Law Degree at Monash University in 1989. She immediately took up a research position with the Women's Coalition Against Family Violence located at the Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre. The project resulted in her co-authoring the book: "Blood on Whose Hands? The Killing of women and children in Victoria" and launched her decade long association with the domestic violence sector.

Maria Dimopoulos held various positions at the Domestic Violence and Incest Resource Centre, the Federation of Community Legal Centres, Zelda's Young Women's Refuge and Refuge Referrals (now known as the Women's Domestic Violence Crisis Service of Victoria).

Since 1996 Maria has worked as a freelance consultant and in that capacity has undertaken projects dealing with training in diversity awareness, community safety, domestic violence, sexual harassment, relations between police and Aboriginal people, and training and mentoring for refugee and immigrant women.

In addition to her professional activities, Maria is active in many community groups that seek to address the issues confronting migrant and refugee women. She is currently serving on the North Eastern Migrant Resource Centre Management Committee; the Women's Rights Action Network; Race and Gender Advisory Group; the Diversity Conference Organising Committee and works regularly in an unpaid capacity with the Islamic Women's Welfare Council and the Victorian Arabic Social Services. She served on the Chief Justice's Ethnic Advisory Committee to the Family Court (1996-98); the Board of Governors of the Australian Council of Social Services (ACOSS) (1998-99); the Board of Governors of the YWCA of Australia (1992-2000) and was a founding member and Chairperson (1997-99) of the Association of Non English Speaking Background Women of Australia.

Maria Dimopoulos is committed to breaking down segregation within the Australian community of groups with differing race, gender, class and sexual identities. She is passionate about human rights, especially women's rights and continues to work for increased cross-cultural understanding and the advancement of women.