Associate Professor Nicholas Apoifis

Dr Apoifis is the Associate Dean (International) for the Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA).

Prior to this he was the Director of Education Innovation & Engagement for ADA and in 2021 was awarded UNSW's prestigious Vice-Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence (General Category). He is also President of the UNSW Football Club, with teams competing in the National Premier League. In 2023, he received the UNSW Sports Volunteer of the Year award for his services to the UNSW sporting community and for his work in gender equality in sport.

As a researcher in the School of Politics & International Relations at UNSW, he works with the application and development of settler colonial theories, sport for social change theories, social movement theories and radical qualitative research practices. Dr Apoifis is the co-founder of Coaching Unlimited, an initiative that provides sport specific coaching accreditation and research based health promotion workshops to support Aboriginal & Torres Strait Islander coaches, and the co-author of the 2020 manuscript Aboriginal Sports Coaches, Community, and Culture (Springer).

His 2017 manuscript Anarchy in Athens (Manchester University Press) was awarded the UNSW Faculty of Arts & Social Sciences Dean's Award for Best Monograph for an Early Career Researcher, 2017. The book was based on unprecedented access to the world’s most militant anarchist movement and involved highly engaged ethnographic fieldwork, referred to as Militant Ethnography. An aspect of this methodological approach has Dr Apoifis disseminating his research insights and findings amongst international activist networks and anti-fascist and anti-authoritarian collectives.