A/Prof. Danielle Tyson

Danielle is recognised for her work on the intersections of gender based violence and legal responses in cases of intimate partner homicide, the impacts of law reform in Australian jurisdictions, and filicide. Her research is centred on empirical qualitative mixed-methods projects that deliver outcomes that have impact outside academia and that assist the communities we serve. She has collaborated with and/or presented the findings of her research to the legal profession, NGOs, community legal centres and government, delivering a framework to improve legal policy and social justice outcomes.

Her research has been published in top ranking journals including Violence Against Women, Social & Legal Studies, International Journal for Crime, Justice and Social Democracy, and the Australian and New Zealand Journal of Criminology. Her latest book co-edited with Professor Thea Brown and Dr Paula Fernandez Arias (Monash University) When Parents Kill Children: Understanding Filicide (Palgrave, 2018) is the first international collection of empirical investigations of filicide from around the world.

Dr Danielle Tyson joined Deakin in 2016 and served as Criminology Discipline Convenor from 2016-2023. She graduated with a PhD in Legal Studies from La Trobe University in 2002 (her PhD research examined the the controversial partial defence of provocation and the ways in which gendered subjectivity is contructed in legal discourse). She has an Honours degree in Legal Studies from Law Trobe University. After completing her PhD, she took up a lectureship in Criminology at the University of Brighton, England. Since then, she has worked as lecturer and/or senior lecturer in Criminology at the University of Melbourne (2004 – 2006), La Trobe University, Victoria, Australia (2007) and Monash University (2007 – 2016).

In 2010, she was a visiting scholar at the Centre in the Centre for the Study of Social and Legal Responses to Violence (#csslrv) at the University of Guelph, Ontario, Canada (www.violenceresearch.ca).

Danielle's research interests include family violence; intimate partner homicide; defences to homicide; criminal law reform; social context/family violence evidence; gender, sentencing and mental health; feminist judging; crime and the media; feminist theory and qualitative research methods. Her approach to research is both victim-centred and interdisciplinary. Her research develops and builds collaborations with key stakeholders and experts in the field to deliver a sound evidence base that can both inform and improve legal policy and findings that are relevant and have impact and relevance to the legal and wider community.

Professional associations:

• The Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology
• The Socio-Legal Studies Association
• The Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand Inc.

Committee memberships at Deakin

• Faculty of Arts & Education Integrity Committee

Bachelor of Criminology; Bachelor of Arts (Criminology)

Dr Danielle Tyson has presented the findings of her research at national and international conferences including the annual meeting of Australian and New Zealand Society of Criminology Conference, the International Crime, Justice and Social Democracy Conference, the Social & Legal Studies Association (UK), the Annual Meeting of the Law and Society Conference (USA), the Law and Society Association of Australia and New Zealand, and the Addressing Filicide International Conference (Italy). Dr Tyson has also presented the findings of her research to the Judical College of Victoria, the Australian Institute of Family Studies and the Australasian Insitute of Judicial Administration.

Co-Director of the Monash Deakin Filicide Research Hub and Co-Facilitator of the bi-annual international conference series Addressing Filicide. The Hub is a joint venture between Monash University and Deakin University committed to fostering communication and collaborations between researchers, professionals and services, producing high quality research about the patterns, risk factors and circumstances of filicide, and building a sound evidence base that can inform policy, prevention and practice.

Co-Founder and member of the Deakin Network Against Gendered Violence (DNAGV). The Hub has been established to create an interdisciplinary, cross-faculty network that distinguishes and showcases Deakin’s combined research expertise in the area of gendered violence (domestic and family violence; intimate partner violence; sexual violence) through a gendered and intersectional framework.

Danielle is frequently invited to offer expert commentary and opinion on topics concerning legal responses to men and women who kill their intimate partners, and filicide (the killing of a child/ren by a parent/stepparent). She has featured in the media, radio and on TV (ABCs 7.30 Report and Australian Story), and online sources like The Conversation.

Danielle has worked on a number of interdisciplinary, cross-Faculty and cross-institutional collaborations that have received funding to support her research including the Victorian Women’s Benevolent Trust; Legal Services Board Victoria; the Australian Institute of Criminology’s Criminology Research Grant Scheme; and the Commonwealth Attorney General.

Danielle's current projects include; Strategies for Improving Access to Justice for Women Who Kill Their Abusers, with Professor Bronwyn Naylor OAM (Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT) and Associate Professor Stella Tarrant (School of Law, University of Western Australia). 

  Improving Legal Responses to Intimate Partner Homicide, 2005 - 2023, with Professor Bronwyn Naylor OAM (Graduate School of Business and Law, RMIT). This research examines how family violence and social framework evidence is recognised in the prosecutions of men and women who kill an intimate partner in Australia.

   Filicide: An exploration of the vulnerability of victims, risk factors and the circumstances of child deaths in Victoria, 2009 – 2020, with Professor Thea Brown and Dr Paula Fernandez Arias (Monash University, Social Work) and Lauren Bedggood, Phoebe Marshall and Heba Nassar, Family Violence Unit, Coroner’s Court Victoria. The Monash-Deakin Filicide Research Hub, in collaboration with the Victorian Systemic Review of Family Violence Deaths (VSRFVD) at the Coroners Court of Victoria, has commenced a new study on filicide in Victoria. The study will examine issues of victim vulnerability, risk factors associated with perpetrators and the role of helping services and their relationship to perpetrators and victims’ families and in developing strategies for intervention and prevention.

  Police body-worn camera technology in response to domestic and family violence: a national study of victim-survivor perspectives and experiences, led by Dr Mary Iliadis (Deakin University), Dr Bridget Harris (Queensland University of Technology), Associate Professor Asher Flynn (Monash University), Dr Zarina Vakhitova (Monash University) (funded by the Criminology Research Council (CRG 35/20-21, $67,347.75) Australian Institute of Criminology).