| Helen Vatsikopoulos | |
| Birth Date: | 1960 1, df=yes |
| Birth Place: | Florina, Greece |
| Alma Mater: | University of Technology Sydney |
| Occupation: | Journalist, academic, documentary film-maker |
| Employer: | Special Broadcasting Service, Australian Broadcasting Corporation |
| Television: | Dateline, Foreign Correspondent, Lateline, Asia Pacific Focus |
Helen Vatsikopoulos is an Australian journalist, academic and documentary film-maker.
Helen Vatsikopoulos was born in Florina and early in her life lived in Laimos, a village in Western Macedonia, Greece. One of her grandmothers was a Slavophone Macedonian, her father identified as a Greek and some members of her family as Macedonian.[1] She and her parents immigrated to Australia in 1965 and lived in Adelaide, South Australia.[2] Vatsikopoulos was raised in a working class family and they were involved in the local Greek community.[3] In her youth, she had a patriotic Greek upbringing and on weekends attended Greek language school.[4] Vatsikopoulos considered herself Greek Macedonian during the Macedonia naming dispute.
For 27 years, Vatsikopoulos was a journalist and served as an international reporter early on in her career.[5] As a reporter, she worked for the Special Broadcasting Service (SBS) and also hosted their Dateline current affairs program.[6] At the Australian Broadcasting Corporation (ABC) she was a reporter for the Foreign Correspondent program, a reporter and producer for Lateline and was host on the Asia Pacific Focus program and the Australia Network.[7]
Later in life, Vatsikopoulos researched her family history and for her doctorate, the topics of migration, complex ethno–linguistic identities and the Greek Civil War.[8] In September 2011, Vatsikopoulos joined the University of Technology, Sydney and is a lecturer in Journalism and holds a Doctorate in Creative Arts (2019).[9]
In 1992, Vatsikopoulos won a Walkley Award for All Media/Best International Report for her body of work on the dissolution of the Soviet Union, for SBS's Dateline.[10]