Adele Pavlidis

Dr Adele Pavlidis is an Associate Professor in Sociology with the School of Humanities, Languages and Social Science, and previously a DECRA Fellow (2018 to 2021). She is author of three books, Sport, Gender and Power: The Rise of Roller Derby(2016, Routledge, with Simone Fullagar), Feminism and a Vital Politics of Depression and Recovery (Palgrave, with Simone Fullagar and Wendy O'Brien) and Feminist Futures in Sport: Exploring the Affective Dynamics of Change in Australian Rules Football and Roller Derby (2025, Palgrave, with Simone Fullagar and Wendy O'Brien).

She has published widely on a range of sociocultural issues in sport and leisure, with a focus on gender and power relations. Theoretically her work traverses contemporary scholarship on affect, power and organizations, and she is deeply interested in social, cultural and personal transformation and the entanglements between people, organizations, and wellbeing.

Prior to beginning her career as an academic Adele worked in the Community sector as a Drug and Alcohol Worker and Youth Worker, as well as Grant Writing, Administration and Volunteer Management in Local Council and State Government. She has a strong interest in mental health and wellbeing outside of clinical settings.

Currently her work focuses on sport as a key site of change in Australian society and an important context for changing and challenging attitudes towards women. In particular she is interested in connecting social, cultural and health concepts with sport in the hope of creating more inclusive futures.

She is Vice-President of the Australian Women and Gender Studies Association, and on the Editorial Boards of the Sociology of Sport Journal and Leisure Sciences.

Adele is the Research Seminar Series Convenor for the Sport and Gender Equity (SAGE) at research group at Griffith, which is formally partnered with the Global Observatory for Gender Equality and Sport in Switzerland. Adele serves on the Advisory Board and Expert Group of the Global Observatory.

She is currently leading an ARC Discovery Grant with an international team to investigate mega-sport event sport participation legacies and experimenting with ways of co-creating knowledge with girls, women and non-binary people.