Professor Nicole L Asquith

Professor Nicole Asquith was appointed the inaugural Chair of Policing and Emergency Management at the University of Tasmania, and Director of the Tasmanian Institute of Law Enforcement Studies. Nicole has worked with and for policing services for over 25 years, primarily in relation to vulnerable victims. Before returning to the University of Tasmania, Nicole was the Associate Professor of Policing and Criminal Justice at Western Sydney University, and Senior Lecturer at Deakin University.

In addition to her academic roles at UTas, Nicole is the Co-Director of the Vulnerability, Resilience & Policing Research Consortium, and Convenor of the Australian Hate Crime Network. Along with Dr Isabelle Bartkowiak-Théron, Nicole has published widely on policing encounters with vulnerable people, including three books: Policing Vulnerability (Federation Press), Policing Encounters with Vulnerability (Palgrave), and Policing Practices and Vulnerable People (Palgrave). Based on her work with rural police, and her critical analysis of policing innovations in the last twenty years, Nicole will publish in 2023 on Critical Policing Studies (Routledge).

In her collaborations with Ryan Thorneycroft (WSU), Peta Cook (UTas) and the Scholarship Disabled team, Nicole has explored academic ableism, and the ableism that permeates criminal justice processes.