Cirrus@Austlit

Dennis McDermott, BEc, BA(Hons) (Psych), MA, grew up in Tamworth. His academic positions included Conjoint Senior Lecturer at the Indigenous Health, Muru Marri Indigenous Health Unit, School of Public Health and Community Medicine, University of New South Wales (Sydney); Director of Flinders University’s two Poche Centres for Indigenous Health and Well-Being (Adelaide and Northern Territory); and inaugural Pro Vice-Chancellor (Indigenous) at La Trobe University (Melbourne).

A Koori man, McDermott's mother’s family are from Gadigal land (inner Sydney) and he also had with connections to Gomeroi country (north-west NSW).

Apart from his academic career and poetry writing, McDermott also drove cabs, worked in radio and practiced as a therapist. 

In 2006, McDermott won the Dr Ross Ingram Memorial Essay Competition, for his essay 'Unknown Family at the Taxi Stand', published in the Medical Journal of Australia in May, 2006.