Researcher Biography
Nathan West is a Biripi guri and Lecturer in the School of Architecture, Design and Planning at The University of Queensland. Born and raised on Awabakal Country in Lake Macquarie, his multidisciplinary training and practice spans the built environment, anthropology and philosophy, including postgraduate study at the University of Cambridge as a Roberta Sykes Scholar. His work increasingly focuses on questions that resist traditional disciplinary boundaries, with particular interest in cross-cultural epistemology and the dynamics of epistemic diversity.
His research examines when and whether knowledge “integration” across different epistemic systems is coherent or desirable, and how the formats of collaboration—institutions, policy settings, governance arrangements and project structures—shape what becomes visible, actionable or excluded. Drawing on multiple fields including anthropology, philosophy and complexity science he explores how different knowledge systems might coordinate without being reduced to a single framework, and what happens when coordination fails. In recent work he has contributed to developing methodological approaches to reveal and include stakeholders who remain outside conventional project governance frameworks.
Prior to joining UQ, Nathan was an Associate Lecturer in Construction Management at The University of Newcastle, where he coordinated large undergraduate courses, supervised Honours students to completion, and led curriculum development that introduced epistemological dimensions of professional practice into built environment programs, particularly concerning engagement with Indigenous communities and Country-led approaches. He has also worked for over five years in construction project management, mostly in the public sector.
Nathan holds a Master of Philosophy in Social Anthropology from the University of Cambridge, based on fieldwork in the Peruvian Amazon examining development, Indigenous knowledge and environmental impact assessment, and a Bachelor of Construction Management (First Class Honours) from The University of Newcastle. He is completing doctoral research on epistemic pluralism in Indigenous–Western environmental collaborations.