Bridget is Director of the Monash Gender and Family Violence Prevention Centre and leads Monash Criminology, as Convenor of Criminology.

She is an interdisciplinary researcher and has published and presented her work in the areas of:

• intimate partner / domestic / family and sexual violence
• technology-facilitated violence, advocacy and justice administration in the context of intimate partner, domestic, family and sexual violence
• violence against women in rural, remote and regional places
• access to justice (including in regional, rural and remote areas, and postcode justice)

She has been invited to advise police and legal bodies on technology-facilitated abuse, stalking and harm and, gender-based violence in regional, rural and remote communities (incidents and experiences; informal and formal responses; technology-facilitated violence and advocacy in non-urban places). Her work in these fields was heavily cited in and used to inform recommendations made by the Victorian Royal Commission into Family Violence. Bridget's research on technology-facilitated violence has also been used in the formulation of national and international guides, reports and research, including by the United Kingdom Houses of Parliament, Office of Science and Technology. Her work on technology-facilitated violence, gender-based violence, access to justice and rural criminology has informed other government and non-government inquiries as well as policy and practice reforms and recommendations, including in the recent review - The Justice Project - undertaken by the Law Council of Australia (focused on the state of access to justice in the nation).

Nominations and Awards: 

Teaching Awards

As an educator, Bridget has received staff and student nominated teaching awards, including the Dean's Award for Teaching Excellence in 2012, from Monash University.

Service Awards

In 2017 she received the Vice Chancellor's Performance Award for Service Excellence, from Queensland University of Technology. 

Research, Impact and Engagement Awards and Nominations

Bridget has received:

• The Bruce Mansfield Award for Outstanding Research in her Honours year, undertaken at Macquarie University.
• A nomination (as the 2014 School of Social Sciences Candidate) for the Mollie Holman Doctoral Medal for Excellence in a PhD thesis. Less than 3% of candidates are considered for this award.
• The Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology New Scholar Prize, in 2019
• The Australia and New Zealand Society of Criminology Outstanding Policing Research Award, with colleagues Dr Zarina Vakhitova, Dr Mary Iliadis, Associate Professors Asher Flynn, in 2022 
• A Monash University Faculty of Arts Excellence for Research Impact Award and was nominated for a Vice Chancellor's Award in this category, in 2023
• A Monash University Faculty of Arts Excellence for Research Team of the Year Award, with Dr Naomi Pfitzner and Dr Jasmine McGowan, and was nominated for a Vice Chancellor's Award in this category, in 2024
• The Comissioner's Award for Excellence, from the Queensland Police Service, with colleagues involved in the development and delivery of family and domestic violence training (for her role in this program since 2022), in 2024. 

She was also named the nation's Top Researcher in Criminology, Criminal Law and Policing, 2025 (in 2024) and 2024 (in 2023) by The Australian, which is determined by ranking both the quality of the research (by examining only top journals in each field) and the impact of the research (judged by the number of citations) in the field, over the past five years.

Funded Research (Grants): From 2016-2021 she was awarded three esteemed Australian Institute of Criminology 'Criminology Research Council' grants:

• Spaceless Violence and Advocacy: Technology-facilitated Abuse, Stalking and Service Provision in Australia (lead, with Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women’s Legal Service NSW and Professor Harry Blagg)
• Reducing Crime and Incarceration Rates in Aboriginal Communities: The Impact of the ‘Yes I Can’ Adult Literacy Campaign (led by Dr Jenny Wise with Associate Professor Bob Boughton, Adjunct Professor Jack Beetson and Dr Nickson)
• 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, with Dr Danielle Tyson, Associate Professor Asher Flynn and Dr Zarina Vakhitova).

In 2018, with Dr Delanie Woodlock, she won an Academy of the Social Sciences in Australia grant to host a workshop on Technology and Domestic Violence: Experiences, Perpetration and Responses, with leading national academics, advocates and practitioners. Other (Australian Communications Consumer Action Network) funded research includes Domestic Violence and Communication Technology: Victim Experiences of Intrusion, Surveillance, and Identity Theft; Associate Professor Molly Dragiewicz, Dr Bridget Harris, Dr Michael Salter, Dr Delanie Woodlock, Women's Legal Service Queensland and Women's Legal Service New South Wales (2018-2019). She has also completed projects on Virtual Reality and Domestic, Family and Sexual Violence  with Dr Claire Ferguson (QUT funded) and Body Worn Cameras: Examining the Merits of Body Worn Camera Technologies in Domestic and Family Violence Cases led by Dr Mary Iliadis, with Dr Danielle Tyson, Associate Professor Asher Flynn and Dr Zarina Vakhitova (funded by Deakin University).

In 2019 she was awarded an Australian Research Council DECRA (Discovery Early Career Research Award, 2020-2024) to complete a project on State responses to technology-facilitated domestic violence.

From 2020-2023 she was part of a Melbourne University led-team (Dr Dana McKay, Renee Fiolet, Dr Charlynn Miller, Cynthia Brown, Kobe Leins, Dr Nwakego Isika) awarded a Melbourne Social Equity Institute Grant: Why do they do that? An investigation into the perpetrator perspective of technology-facilitated abuse (external team: Dr Delanie Woodlock, Jasmine Purches, Vibol Hy, Dr Bridget Harris). She also led a 2020-2021 eSafety Commissioner funded grant (with Dr Delanie Woodlock, WESNET and WWILD) that explored tech-abuse experiences of women with cognitive or intellectual disability.

Information about her other 2022-2026 (government and industry) funded research projects is available via the projects tab on this page, and includes projects on elder abuse, victims views of sentencing, weaponising and harnessing technology in the context of gendered violence, and the policing of gendered violence. 

Bridget's book, edited with Dr Delanie Woodlock - Technology and Domestic and Family Violence: Victimisation,  Perpetration and Responses - features contributions from leading international advocates, practitioners and academics, and was published by Routledge in 2023.