Lecturer in the School of Health Sciences at Deakin University, Maria writes and researches on ethnicity, gender, sexuality and HIV/STDs in education and health. She was formerly a teacher for over a decade in a boys’ Catholic school as well as the Gender and Equity Officer for the Catholic Education Office in South Australia, responsible for writing, consulting and implementing the Gender & Equity Policy for all South Australian Catholic Schools (1993). Apart from academic chapters, research monographs and journal articles, her publications include Someone You Know about a friend with AIDS (Wakefield Press, 1991; new edition, December 2000); Girls Talk: Young Women Speak Their Hearts And Minds (Finch Publishing, 1998) which is a collection of over 150 girls and culturally and sexually diverse young women’s art and writing; and Tapestry (Random House, 1999), a biographical narrative on five generations of her Italian family, exploring shifting constructs of gender, sexuality and ethnic identity. Tapestry was short-listed for the NSW Premier’s Award in the Ethnic Affairs Commission category and in the Children’s Book Council Non-Fiction Award. 
Her forthcoming books are So What’s A Boy? Issues of Masculinity and Schooling about culturally and sexually diverse boys’ education and health (Open University Press, 2001) based on interviews and surveys with over 600 boys; and a book by boys for boys similar to Girls Talk (Working Title: The Stuff that Boys Are Made Of, Allen & Unwin, 2001). Both of the above are co-authored with Dr Wayne Martino from Murdoch University, Western Australia. She is also compiling Coming Out of the Too Hard Basket: Successful Stories from Families, Schools and Communities (Working Title, Finch Publishing, 2002) that presents examples of what has been done and can been done to overcome homophobia within families, schools and the wider community; and has begun the research into bisexual students and queer families in the US and Australia for a forthcoming book, Border Sexualities, Border Families: Diversity  in Schools (working title) (Rowman and Littlefield, New York: 2003). Maria is also writing her next novel for Random House.
Her other ongoing health research projects are: South East Asian women and Hepatitis in Australia; and women partners of bisexually active men.
Maria spends a lot of time on buses, trains and planes between Adelaide, Melbourne and Sydney in order to be with family and friends who are far too supportive and patient with her.

Lecturer in Social Diversity in Health and Education
School of Health Sciences
Deakin University
221 Burwood Highway, Burwood, Vic, 3125
Email: mariapc@deakin.edu.au     http://www.ozemail.com.au/~chiar   

August 1999