Nerkez Opacin

Nerkez is a Senior Research Fellow at the University of Melbourne whose research sits at the intersection of nature-based solutions, public health, and community resilience. Drawing on more than a decade of experience in post-conflict recovery and peacebuilding education, he brings a trauma-informed, place-based lens to research with communities affected by disruption, displacement, and marginalisation.

He studies how nature-based social interventions, including nature-based social prescribing, can reduce loneliness, strengthen social connection and cohesion, and support wellbeing and proactive resilience. His research is community-engaged and grounded in co-design and mixed-methods program evaluation, combining ethnographic observation, interviews, focus groups, photo-elicitation, and survey-based measures to determine what works best, for which populations, and in which environments, and to translate findings into practice and policy.