Associate Professor
Nektarios Karanikas
Faculty of Health,
School of Public Health & Social Work
Biography
Dr Nektarios Karanikas is an Assoc. Prof in the Health, Safety and Environment discipline of the School of Public Health & Social Work at QUT. He was awarded his doctorate in Safety and Quality Management from Middlesex University (UK) following his research on the transformation of a safety program of a large and complex organisation into an operational safety management system. His research used established standards and quality and change management principles to design and implement new performance indicators. A/Prof N. Karanikas also holds a MSc in Human Factors & Safety Assessment in Aeronautics from Cranfield University (UK). His master’s thesis focused on the detection of human factors issues through the analysis of maintenance records. He graduated from the Hellenic Air Force Academy (GR) as an aeronautical engineer and worked as an officer in the Hellenic Air Force (HAF) for more than 18 years before he resigned at the rank of Lt. Colonel in 2014.While in the HAF, A/Prof Karanikas served in various positions related to maintenance and quality management and accident prevention and investigations. He also was a lecturer and instructor for safety and human factors courses, the majority of which he designed or substantially revised. In addition to the application of quality and project management approaches and skills during his service as an engineer, his active and intense engagement into safety management activities of the HAF included the completion of shorter and longer safety projects. Those focused on organisation-wide interventions and the promotion of a mature and inclusive safety culture supported by effective strategies for proactive, predictive and reactive safety management.
In his previous appointment as A/Prof. of Safety & Human Factors in the Amsterdam University of Applied Sciences (NL), Nektarios undertook the design, delivery and continuous evaluation of relevant courses across the whole Bachelor curriculum. He supervised honour degree students conducting their research projects during their placement at various companies, and he delivered in-house and public masterclasses in safety, risk and investigation management. Also, A/Prof Karanikas led a 4-years co-funded project about Aviation Safety Metrics with the contribution of over 40 partners and smaller contract research and consultancy projects with a total budget of about 1,200,000 EUR. A/Prof Karanikas willingness to bring closer academia and industry led to his initiative to launch in 2016 the International Cross-industry Safety Conference, which he organised and chaired for three consecutive years.
A/Prof Karanikas has been an active member of various prestigious international and regional associations. He has published two edited books, numerous academic journal articles, including papers in top-tier safety journals such as Safety Science, Safety Research and Risk Analysis, peer-reviewed conference papers and book chapters and has contributed as a speaker to over 100 international and regional events. He is an Associate Editor for Safety Science, a member of editorial boards and a regular reviewer of safety, human factors and aerospace-related journals, and he volunteers in various activities of professional bodies.
During his professional and academic career, A/Prof Karanikas has employed a multitude of methodologies and different population samples, His research methods include documentation analysis from different organisational levels, analysis of historical records, administration of surveys and conduction of interviews with the participation of managers and employees from different locations, job functions and levels and diverse demographics and cultural backgrounds. He has demonstrable experience in quantitative data analysis through statistical tests and the processing of qualitative data through coding and thematic analysis. A/Prof Karanikas' ability to synthesise data and information from various sources has led to insightful findings for organisations as well as contextualised and workable roadmaps to develop holistic and operational solutions for safety
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
Interdisciplinary Engineering, Public Health and Health Services, Other Psychology and Cognitive Science
Field of Research code, Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classification (ANZSRC), 2008
Qualifications
- Doctor of Professional Studies (Other)
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. 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. 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. 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. 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 & MM. 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. 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. https://eprints.qut.edu.au/197603
QUT ePrints
For more publications by Nektarios, explore their research in QUT ePrints (our digital repository).
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