Associate Professor
Nektarios Karanikas
Faculty of Health,
School of Public Health & Social Work
Biography
High-performing senior executive, researcher, and educator with 30 years of operational and strategic leadership across military aviation, heavy industry, and tertiary sectors. Uniquely integrates engineering, human factors, and public health to solve complex sociotechnical safety challenges.- Strategic & Operational Leadership: Former military Chief Engineer and Head of Safety Analysis (Lt Col., res.); directed aircraft maintenance, quality assurance, and investigations across technical teams of up to 100 personnel.
- Educational Reform & Governance: Transformed QUT’s postgraduate OHS programme (reducing attrition and lifting pass rates ); secured 7-year academic and international IOSH professional accreditations; serves on the Australian OHS Education Accreditation Board (AOHSEAB).
- Applied Industry Research & Impact: Principal Investigator iin external research and grants (including National Industry PhD Program and Safe Work Australia awards; authored foundational industry texts and Body of Knowledge chapter.
-Discipline Thought Leadership: Associate Editor for Safety Science; elected Chair of HFESA Queensland; Fellow of the AIHS and RAeS; and Advance HE Senior Fellow / Indigenous Knowledges Associate Fellow.
Personal details
Positions
- Associate Professor in Health, Safety and Environment
Faculty of Health,
School of Public Health & Social Work
Keywords
occupational health and safety, safety risk management, human factors and ergonomics, systemic hazard analysis, quality management
Research field
Other engineering, Public health, Other psychology
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2020
Qualifications
- Doctor of Professional Studies (Other)
Professional memberships and associations
Teaching
Associate Professor Karanikas is currently the course coordinator for the PostGrad Diploma in Occupational Health & Safety (PU65) and a member of the Learning & Teaching Committee of the School of Public Health & Social Work.
He coordinates and teaches in the Units:
- PUN500 (Occupational Health & Safety Management)
- PUP116 (Human Factors & Ergonomics)
- PUP250 (Toxicology & Occupational Hygiene)
- PUN301 (Occupational Health & Safety Law & Policy)
Unit PUP116 is also offered as a Professional Development Course in Human Factors respectively and provide the participants with a great opportunity to upskill.
Furthermore, A/Prof Karanikas supervises students in their capstone projects of Unit HLN703. A/Prof Karanikas is interested in supervising Higher Research Degree students in the following areas:
Publications
Research outputs by year
- Karanikas, N. & Pazell, S. (2023). Ergonomic Insights: Successes and Failures of Work Design. CRC Press. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/236524
- Karanikas, N., (2023). The Tyranny of Misusing Documented Rules and Procedures. In N. Karanikas & S. Pazell (Eds.), Ergonomic Insights: Successes and Failures of Work Design (pp. 141–152). CRC Press. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/236525
- Pilbeam, C. & Karanikas, N. (2023). Effective transfer of safety interventions within and between organizations: Leveraging translation theory to achieve improved outcomes. Safety Science, 168, Article 106318. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/243604
- Dwyer, J., Karanikas, N. & Sav, A. (2023). Scoping review of peer-reviewed empirical studies on implementing high reliability organisation theory. Safety Science, 164, Article 106178. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/239337
- Karanikas, N., Weber, D., Bruschi, K. & Brown, S. (2022). Identification of systems thinking aspects in ISO 45001:2018 on occupational health and safety management. Safety Science, 148, Article 105671. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/227428
- Patriarca, R., Chatzimichailidou, M., Karanikas, N. & Di Gravio, G. (2022). The past and present of System-Theoretic Accident Model and Processes (STAMP) and its associated techniques: a scoping review. Safety Science, 146, Article 105566. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/226401
- Karanikas, N. & Chatzimichailidou, M. (2021). Safety Insights: Success and Failure Stories of Practitioners. Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/203675
- Karanikas, N., (2021). Necessary incompliance and safety-threatening collegiality. In N. Karanikas & M. Chatzimichailidou (Eds.), Safety Insights: Success and Failure Stories of Practitioners (pp. 139–148). Routledge. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/203665
- Karanikas, N., Popovich, A., Steele, S., Horswill, N., Laddrak, V. & Roberts, T. (2020). Symbiotic types of systems thinking with systematic management in occupational health and safety. Safety Science, 128, Article 104752. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/199885
- Karanikas, N., Chionis, D. & Plioutsias, A. (2020). "Old" and "new" safety thinking: Perspectives of aviation safety investigators. Safety Science, 125, Article 104632. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/197603
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Nektarios, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
Filter publications:
A complete list of publications is available at: https://www.qut.edu.au/about/our-people/academic-profiles/nektarios.karanikas
Supervision
Looking for a postgraduate research supervisor?
I am currently accepting research students for Honours, Masters and PhD study.
You can browse existing student topics offered by QUT or propose your own topic.
Current supervisions
- An Integrative Framework of Occupational Health and Safety and Health Promotion in Australian Workplaces
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Julie-Anne Carroll, Associate Professor Leisa-Maree Toms - Beyond Determinism: Design and Implementation of Occupational Health and Safety Metrics based on Risk Preventability and Harm Controllability
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Rebecca Langdon, Professor Lisa Bradley - Developing a Tailored Framework to Support Effective Functioning of Occupational Health and Safety Committees in Bangladesh Ready-Made Garment Industry
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Adem Sav, Professor Philip Baker - Feasibility of Developing a Criteria-Based Framework to Support Decision-Making for Safety Risk Controls
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Leisa-Maree Toms - The Feasibility of Using Artificial Intelligence to Inform Effective Risk Assessment of Workplace Musculoskeletal Disorders
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Associate Professor Dimitri Perrin, Professor Richi Nayak - Use of medicinal cannabis in the workplace: Implications for workplace health and safety
PhD, Principal Supervisor
Other supervisors: Dr Adem Sav, Professor Michelle Gatton
The supervisions listed above are only a selection.