Dr Lavina Lee is Director of the Foreign Policy and Defence Program at the United States Studies Centre where she leads research on the US-Australia alliance, AUKUS, defence industrial cooperation, furthering Australia’s regional partnerships and geo-strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific more broadly. Prior to joining the Centre, Dr Lee was Chair of the Discipline of Security Studies at Macquarie University, Sydney. She was appointed to the Council of the Australian Strategic Policy Institute from 2020 to 2023 and was previously a Director of the Institute for Regional Security. Before joining Macquarie University in 2007, she was a political risk consultant with Control Risks Group.
Dr Lee is the author of the book US Hegemony and International Legitimacy: Norms Power and Followership in the Wars on Iraq (Routledge, 2010), and has published numerous journal articles, book chapters, research reports and commentary on US-China strategic competition in the Indo-Pacific, Indian foreign and security policy, nuclear proliferation, conventional and nuclear deterrence and the US-Australia alliance. She also periodically publishes opinion pieces in The Australian, The Australian Financial Review, Nikkei Asia, and the New Straits Times, as well as with specialist policy outlets such as the Lowy Interpreter and ASPI Strategist.
She has led projects for the Australian government and Australian and international think tanks on opportunities and weaknesses of the ‘Quad’, Chinese influence in South-East Asia, the role of democracy promotion in the Free and Open Indo-Pacific strategy, using non-military tools to counter grey-zone activity and the implications of Chinese nuclear modernisation on US extended nuclear deterrence. Her work integrates academic and policy approaches, and she speaks widely to expert and lay audiences on international and security issues.
Dr Lee has commerce and law degrees from the University of NSW, an MA in International Peace and Security from King’s College, the University of London (with distinction), and a PhD in International Relations from Sydney University.
