President of the Steering Committee - Bec Strating is the Director of La Trobe Asia and an Associate Professor in Politics in the Department of Politics, Media and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne. Her research primarily focuses on maritime disputes in Asia and Australian foreign and defence policy. She has written three monographs, most recently “Defending the Maritime Rules-Based Order” (2020).

Outi Donovan is a Lecturer in International Relations at Griffith University, Queensland, Australia. Her research investigates peacebuilding and peace processes in conflict-affected societies. Among other themes, her work has explored interactions between local and UN-led peacebuilding processes, the responsibility to protect principle, pragmatic ethics and the gendered dynamics of civilian protection in peacebuilding contexts.

Dr Amrita Malhi is Senior Adviser Geoeconomics at Save the Children; and Honorary Senior Lecturer in the Humanities Research Centre at the Australian National University and the College of Humanities, Arts, and Social Sciences at Flinders University. A historian, Amrita is working on a book on the allure of the caliphate in Southeast Asia, with a focus on a remote uprising in Malaya in 1928.

Dr Kelly Gerard is Senior Lecturer in the School of Social Sciences at the University of Western Australia. Her research focuses on the political economy of aid and development policymaking. Kelly is an ARC Discovery Early Career Research Award recipient and an Endeavour Cheung Kong Award recipient. She is the author of ASEAN’s Engagement of Civil Society: Regulating Dissent (Palgrave 2014) and co-editor of the Routledge series, Policy and Power (with Toby Carroll and Melissa Johnston).

2022 Fulbright Scholar and Overall Outstanding Young Alumnus for 2020, Dr Elise Stephenson is a researcher-practitioner with expertise across diplomacy, national security, government, entrepreneurship, and diversity and inclusion. Dr Stephenson is currently the Deputy Director of the Global Institute for Women's Leadership, founded and chaired by former prime minister Julia Gillard.

Katrina Lee-Koo is a Professor, Director of the Gender, Peace and Security research centre and former Head of the Politics and International Relations program at Monash University. Katrina teaches and researches in the fields of inclusive peace and security, feminist international relations, and women and leadership.

Dr Huong Le Thu has over 15 years of experience working in academia and think tanks across the Indo-Pacific: in Taiwan (National Chengchi University), Singapore (ISEAS Yusof Ishak Institute), and Australia (ANU and ASPI). She is a recognised expert on Southeast Asia, including on regional alignment politics, perceptions of great-power competition, and ASEAN.

I'm a policy advisor, academic and analyst with more than 20 years of experience in International Relations. I've worked with government, international organisations, think tanks, NGOs and universities. My research interests are human security and the intersection between disaster and conflict, climate security, civ-mil and humanitarian issues, and defence and foreign policy.

Tony Speldewinde joined the National Security College at the Australian National University in July 2022 on secondment from the Australian Federal Police. Tony’s role includes designing and facilitating innovative, quality executive and professional development courses for Australia’s national security community and the broader public sector. Tony’s AFP career has spanned executive support and operational support roles across high tech crime, national security policy, international operations and learning & development – including delivering training in Indonesia and Malaysia.