Read more about our Contributors

Dr Kiriloi M. Ingram is a Lecturer in International Relations at the School of Political Science and International Studies, University of Queensland.

Jon Yuan Jiang is a PhD candidate at the Queensland University of Technology, a graduate from the Moscow State Institute of International Relations, and a Russian and Mandarin speaker. He is and a delegate of the Australia-based Australia China Youth Dialogue and a Young Leader of the US-based Pacific Forum. He has published in global media and think tanks and can be found at https://www.jonyuanjiang.com/

Daweena Tia Motwany is a Councillor with the AIIA ACT Branch and a Fellow of the Indo-Pacific Cooperation Network. She is a policy practitioner with experience across international affairs, public policy, and strategic research.

Henry Strong has a Masters of International Law and Diplomacy from the Australian National University and a degree in European Studies from The Hague University of Applied Sciences, specialising in Politics in Practical Application.

Dr Teesta Prakash is a Research Fellow (Security and Geopolitics) at the Australia India Institute (University of Melbourne). Teesta is an expert on the strategic affairs of the Indo-Pacific, specialising in geoeconomics of India, Southeast Asia and the Quad. She was previously an analyst at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute leading the Australia-India Cyber and Critical Technology Program between 2022 and 2023. Before that she was the inaugural Southeast Asia Research Associate at the Lowy Institute between 2021 and 2022. She completed her PhD in 2021 from Griffith University, the focus of her thesis was Australia-India strategic and economic relations during the Cold War.

Andrew Catton is an Educational Content Specialist at Pondok Bahasa and a registered Indonesian, English, and Humanities teacher.

Dr Geoff Heriot is a consultant on media and governance, a former corporate and editorial executive of the ABC, with extensive international experience. A review of his book, International Broadcasting and its Contested Role in Australian Statecraft: Middle Power, Smart Power (Anthem Press), appeared in The Reading Room on 30 January 2024.

Dr Bryce Wakefield is the CEO of the Australian Institute of International Affairs and a Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University. He has lived, worked and researched in the United States, Japan, Europe and New Zealand. He trained as a political scientist with particular expertise in International Relations and the international affairs of East Asia. From 2008 to 2012 Bryce was the associate responsible for Northeast Asian programs at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars in Washington, DC. In this role, he was responsible for conceiving, designing and organising around 60 events in Washington, including policy briefings in the U.S. Congress, on political issues in Australia, Taiwan, North and South Korea and Japan. He co-organised, with the Wilson Center’s partners, three major annual policy conferences in Tokyo. He has also given talks in Japanese, including for parliamentarians at the National Diet Building From 2012 to 2018, he was a tenured lecturer of area studies and international relations at Leiden University in the Netherlands. At Leiden he taught numerous classes on the foreign policy and domestic politics of Japan, the politics of East Asia, comparative politics, and the relationship between politics and culture. He designed and implemented a successful specialisation on culture and politics for Leiden’s graduate program in International Relations. During his time as a university academic he also delivered training, induction and briefing sessions for Dutch and international diplomats in the Hague and in Japan. Bryce is regularly quoted in the media. His work and views have appeared in print in all major Australian newspapers as well as in, BusinessWeek, Canberra Times, Daily Yomiuri, Der Spiegel, Financial Times, the Japan Times, Sankei Shimbun, de Volkskrant, the Wall Street Journal, and the Washington Times, and many others. He has also appeared on most Australian television networks, as well as such international broadcasters as BBC News, CSPAN, NHK (Japan) and MSNBC. In February 2015, the Tokyo bureau chief of the New York Times named him as one of 10 “influential and reliable intellectuals” outside Washington that could help foster better ties between Japan and the then Obama Administration. Bryce’s academic publications to date focus on constitutional issues and defence policy, political marketing and national identity in Japan. While at the Wilson Center, he also edited and contributed to several of the centre’s multi-author publications on East Asian politics and foreign policy. Bryce lived in Japan from 1998 to 2004 and earned his master’s degree from Osaka University’s School of International Public Policy. He earned his PhD in political studies from the University of Auckland.

Benjamin Isakhan is Australian Research Council Future Fellow in the Alfred Deakin Institute and Professor of International Politics in the School of Humanities and Social Sciences at Deakin University, Australia. Ben is also Adjunct Senior Research Associate, Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Johannesburg, South Africa and Consulting Scholar at the Penn Cultural Heritage Centre at the University of Pennsylvania in the US.