The Board of Melanoma Institute Australia has appointed Ms Maria Gonzalez as Chief Executive Officer following a comprehensive external search process.

Since December 2025, Maria has been leading MIA in the Interim CEO role. Maria has been a senior leadership team member at MIA for sixteen years. Maria led the clinical trials program; she grew the number of patients able to access clinical trials at MIA, opened the Institute’s first investigator-initiated drug trials, and established the Investigator Trials Team, which enables MIA to design and lead trials across Australia and internationally. Under her leadership, the clinical trials unit received the 2024 NSW Premier’s Award for Outstanding Cancer Research: Clinical Trials Unit of the Year.

As Director of Clinical Care, Maria identified a national gap in access to specialist melanoma nursing and secured federal funding to establish the National Melanoma Nurse Program across thirty positions nationally, together with Australia’s first advanced cancer nursing clinical outcomes research framework.

MIA Board Chair Clinical Professor Angela Hong said: “Maria has spent 16 years helping build this organisation, and she has led it with clarity and purpose as the interim CEO. She understands what makes world-class research and clinical care possible, and she brings the operational and financial discipline to sustain it. The interview panel’s decision was unanimous, and we are confident that her discipline and focus will continue to drive MIA’s high-performance culture and advance our mission.”

Maria commences in the role immediately, as MIA continues its work towards a vision of zero deaths from melanoma.