For over 10 years, UC graduate Maria Fleming has been providing her expertise to the Australian Department of Education. After earning her Masters of Strategic Communication in 2013, she put her new knowledge to work in stakeholder engagement to support policy development and implementation. Through this Maria is expanding access to higher education, introducing higher education affordability reforms, and helping drive new research initiatives in education. "Now that I have a Master's degree, I feel more confident about branching out into other areas of work," Maria says.

Before Maria was an Assistant Director she was the Senior Communications Manager for the Department of Education, demonstrating her exceptional services in communications engagement, proving herself a number of times with skills in social and traditional media, stakeholder engagement, grants program communications and government policy communications. Over the years, Maria has been instrumental in developing and implementing communication strategies, managing conflicts and inadequacies in communication processes, writing speeches, media releases and opinion pieces, community management, and web project management.

In recognition of her extraordinary work and strategic communication skills, Maria has been offered a three month Exchange Officer position in Japan where she will conduct a research project on the Japanese and Australian bilateral relationship in Education.

Prior to working with the Australian government, Maria worked at Radio 3AW where she produced weekend programs, commercials, and assisted in the newsroom. Later, she was a Public Affairs Officer with the Australian Food and Grocery Council.

Extraordinary communication skills go hand in hand with extraordinary writing, and Maria won the 2008 Marjorie Graber McInnes Short Story Award. In addition to being a published author, Maria is also fluent in German. Maria was also recognised for her outstanding communication and work in 2011, winning the Deans Excellence Award for holding a grade point average of 6.5.

Giving back to UC is one of Maria's greatest passions, and even after graduating, she has stayed on to tutor undergraduate students in research methods, media studies and communications. "My time at UC helped to demonstrate my ongoing commitment to learning and development in the workplace, and also provided a personal opportunity to work with young people at UC who are just starting on their life journey."