Nina Windgaetter

How do institutional structures shape what we know—and what we ignore—about the sports and other institutions we love? This question drives the work of Nina Windgätter, a philosopher at the University of New Hampshire. Her research operates at the intersection of social epistemology and political philosophy, with a primary focus on the institutions of professional sport.

As an expert on the philosophy of officiating and a former US Youth Soccer National Female Young Referee of the Year, she provides a unique perspective on the practical and epistemic challenges of modern refereeing and the implementation of VAR (Video Assistant Referee) technology. Her work critiques the tendency to abstract away from the lived reality of soccer institutions, analyzing how high-tech officiating impacts fairness and trust. This focus on institutional design extends to her research on gendered disparities in sport, where she investigates the structural causes and manifestations of inequality in professional sport.

In the classroom, Nina creates immersive, collaborative environments where students use everything from professional cycling tactics to speculative fiction to better understand core philosophy concepts and the world they live in. Whether her students are analyzing the latest World Cup officiating controversy or a Le Guin short story, her goal is to give them and the broader public the tools to see the hidden power structures in the systems we navigate every day.