Nivek is undertaking a PhD at the Institute for Sustainable Futures to answer the question: can democratic participatory institutions, such as deliberative mini-publics contribute to improving the quality of democracy?

Nivek is the founder and director of Deliberately Engaging where she recruits mini-publics for deliberative processes around Australia and supports online engagement through the European crowdsourcing platform Synthetron.

Nivek has worked for the newDemocracy Foundation designing and managing citizens’ juries. And before that she worked in State government and the non-government sector undertaking community and stakeholder engagement to support change and the development of new policies in a broad range of areas including quality childcare, children’s rights, competition policy, consumer protection, community development, workplace health and safety, road safety and regulatory reform. 

Nivek is the host and producer of Real Democracy Now! a podcast, where she talks to thought leaders from around the world about democracy and democratic reform. And the producer of the Facilitating Public Deliberations podcast with Professor Carson.