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Sawathey Ek OAM is a lawyer, Principal of E K Lawyers (Sydney) and founder of Cambodian Action Group. Sawathey is a former refugee from Cambodia in 1983 and has recently been successfully coordinating with federal Cross Benchers, the Greens and the Labor Party to secure a motion passed in the Federal Senate on 25 June 2018 human rights situation in Cambodia. He is the founder and CEO of the Australian South East Asian Network - ASEAN Ltd and on 7 May 2025, a motion was passed in the NSW Legislative Council recognising initiatives of the Network to promote Australian values for social cohesion. The Constitution of the Network registered with ASIC successfully enshrined statements of Australia's former justice of the High Court, the Hon. Michael Kirby AC CMG, as part of the definition of Australian Values. 

Professor Brent Jackson is a Program Director at the Canberra Business School and former executive in the critical minerals mining sector.

Jesse Marks is the CEO of Rihla Research & Advisory LLC, an international geopolitical consultancy focused on the Middle East and Asia.

Pratyush Paras Sarma is a PhD researcher at the School of Politics and International Relations. Research School of Social Science, Australian National University, Canberra. His research focuses on the strategic dimensions of election campaigns in the Indian context, with a specific focus on political parties' behaviour during campaigns. Beyond his doctoral work, Pratyush examines international security and the intersection of global power dynamics and sport, expanding his academic engagement with themes of power, strategy, and global governance.

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Jennifer Thomson is a Senior Lecturer in PoLIS at the University of Bath. Her main research interests are gender and foreign policy (particularly the concept of a 'feminist' foreign policy); gender and security; women’s rights in post-conflict divided societies; and sexual and reproductive health and rights in international policymaking. From 2022-2026 she is PI on the ESRC New Investigator project Gender in Foreign Policymaking: the academic and policy implications of feminist foreign policy. This project considers the growth and meaning of states' increasing attention to gender equality in their foreign policies. She is also a CoI on a 5-year UKRI-funded project on menstrual justice in low- and middle-income countries (Mejara - Menstrual Justice in Nepal and Guatemala (mejara-project.com). From 2018-2019, she was Co-I on the GCRF funded project Menstrual Taboos and Menstrual Hygiene Policy in Nepal. She is the author of Abortion Law and Political Institutions: Explaining Policy Resistance (Palgrave, 2019). Her work has been published in, amongst others, European Journal of International Security, International Studies Review, International Studies Perspectives, the British Journal of Politics and International Relations and the International Political Science Review. She is elected to University Senate from Academic Assembly and was formerly Athena Swan Co-Champion for the Faculty of Humanities and Social Sciences. She convenes the MA in Gender and Politics. Dr Thomson joined the University of Bath in 2017. She previously worked at De Montfort University and as Managing Editor of the LSE British Politics and Policy blog. She received her PhD from Queen Mary University of London in 2016.

Dr Michael Lawriwsky is an author, former chair of the Ukrainian Studies Foundation at Monash University, former editor for the Australian Ukrainian Review, and a former trustee of Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. His career has included positions in academia, investment banking and consulting.

Hadia Allaudin is a researcher at Consortium for Asia Pacific studies (CAPS). She is a student of International Relations at National Defence University (NDU), with a keen interest in geopolitics, climate change and global affairs, particularly in  Asia.

Dr Anum Riaz Associate Director Research Center for International Strategic Studies (CISS).