Aurélie Pankowiak

Dr Aurélie Pankowiak is a Senior Research Fellow, at the Institute for Health and Sport, Victoria University, where she leads the child safeguarding stream of the Safe and Inclusive Sport Research Group. She is a current recipient of a VicHealth Early Career Research Fellowship (May 2023 – Nov 2026), as part of which she develops a program of research on the prevention and response to interpersonal violence against young people in sport and the inclusion of victims and survivors in research, policy and practice. While Aurélie's work is multidisciplinary/ theoretical, she increasingly works from a critical perspective, in collaboration with victims and survivors of diverse forms of abuse and violence in sport.

Aurélie graduated with a PhD in national Paralympic sport policy in Nov 2020 (Victoria University). She is a survivor of grooming and persistent child sexual abuse and exploitation, perpetrated against her by her basketball coach, from the age of 15 to 18, when she played basketball in her home town club in the Paris suburbs. She recently experienced the additional trauma of institutional betrayal during 2 complaint procedures with the French Basketball Federation and the French Youth Services (2022-24), after she reported the fact that her abuser was still coaching despite a conviction. The two investigations concluded the abuser could still coach, as, according to French law, it is his right, despite him showing no remorse or understanding of the harm he has caused. These experiences inform Aurélie's research and advocay.