Marie-Louise McDermott is the MHPA Vice-president for 2017/2018 and a member of the Research Subcommittee. She served as an MHPA Committee Member in 2016/2017.
Marie-Louise was born in Brisbane and completed a science degree with honours and a Dip Ed at the University of Queensland. After working as a science teacher and university tutor in Brisbane, she moved to Canberra, worked in the Australian Public Service, developed an interest in information technology and married Ian McConchie.
Marie-Louise worked from Canberra as a technical writer and as a consultant on information technology projects until 1996, when she and Ian moved to the NSW South Coast. After a stint as a researcher at the Illawarra Waste Management Board, Marie-Louise worked as a technical writer and a consultant on information technology, waste management and community development projects until 2008.
While living in Sydney, she and Ian both qualified to teach English to Speakers of other languages and Marie-Louise also completed an MA in Public History at the University of Technology Sydney. Having gained funding from the NSW Heritage Office, she developed and launched a website about the ocean pools along the New South Wales coast in 2006 and managed that website for the following five years.
In 2008, Marie-Louise and Ian moved to Perth and settled in Maylands. Marie-Louise worked as an English as Second Language teacher and completed her PhD in Cultural Studies at Edith Cowan University on the topic of Australia’s ocean pools. She is a founder member and current Chairperson of the non-profit organisation, All into Ocean Pools Inc, which promotes the ongoing use, study and celebration of ocean pools around the world. She now works as a thesis coach and researcher and published an ebook relating to ocean pools in 2017.
In 2015, she led a sports history walk around Maylands.
As a member of the MHPA’s Research Subcommittee, Marie-Louise has focused on making the association’s digital images accessible via Flickr, designing a new website and researching the recreational and sporting history of Maylands.
John E McLennan and Marie-Louise McDermott co-authored two papers that Marie-Louise presented in Sydney at the July 2017 conference of the Australian Society for Sports History:
We have:
Marie-Louise has also given us the use of her photographs of Maylands.
See our Marie-Louise McDermott Flickr Album for digitised images and other digitised information.
Maylands Historical and Peninsula Association acknowledges the Whadjuk people of the Noongar nation as the Traditional Custodians of the land on which we work, live, and learn. We acknowledge that we tell the stories of Noongar Country and we pay our respects to Elders past and present. This always was, and always will be, Aboriginal land.
Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander peoples should be aware that this website may contain images or names of people who have passed away.