Mary Ann Bin-Sallik, EdD (Harvard), EdM (Harvard), Assoc. Dip. SW (SAIT) RSN, JP,was born in Broome on the land of the Yaharu people, Western Australia, and her people are the Djaru of east Kimberley. Her father was born in Java, Indonesia, came to Broome under the indentured labour scheme to work in the pearling industry. Mary Ann Bin-Sallik began her primary education at a Catholic school in Broome and realised early in life that she did not want to follow the trend of becoming a domestic servant.
Her parents were entrepreneurs who worked hard to provide the finance needed to give her a good education. Her father became a truck driver and her mother ran her own milk bar and fishing business. They also converted the family car into a taxi and a section of their house into a small goods store. Mary Ann and her brother Albert were able to go to a boarding school in Adelaide. Her parents were adamant that Mary Ann would grow up to become a private secretary and initially detested her desire to train as a nurse. After sometime her parents came to understand her determination and gave her their consent.
Mary Ann Bin-Sallik was the first Aboriginal person to graduate as a trained nurse from the old Darwin Hospital, Larrakia, in 1962, and spent seventeen years nursing in the Northern Territory. She was the first Indigenous Australian to be appointed to an academic post within the Indigenous Higher Education sector, and the first Indigenous Australian to obtain a Doctorate from Harvard University in the USA.
She has held a number of positions on many Indigenous and Commonwealth Education committees. Professor Bin-Sallik was a Co-Commissioner for the Human Rights Commission's Inquiry into the Forced Removal of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Children, which instigated the Bringing Them Home Report (1997).
In 2009, Professor Maryann Bin-Sallik was a Senior Education Researcher at Charles Darwin University.
