Read more about our Contributors

Dr Muhammad Zulfikar Rakhmat is a researcher focusing on China-Indonesia-Middle East relations. He holds a B.A. in International Affairs from Qatar University and a M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from the University of Manchester.

Dr Federica Caso is a lecturer in International Relations at La Trobe University. Her research examines gender and race in the military, war, and peacebuilding. She is currently pursuing a research project on Indigenous military integration and reconciliation in Australia, Canada, and New Zealand. Her book Settler Military Politics: Militarisation and the Aesthetics of War Commemoration was published in 2024 by Edinburgh University Press.

Dr Vu Lam a political scientist affiliated with UNSW Canberra, focusing on Southeast Asian trade, diplomacy and strategic affairs. He has worked across research, policy and government sectors, and writes regularly on regional integration and Australia’s Indo-Pacific engagement.

Dr Babet de Groot is a Lecturer in Politics and International Relations at the University of Wollongong and an expert in global plastics governance. She has attended five sessions of the Intergovernmental Negotiating Committee on Plastic Pollution, most recently INC-5.2 in Geneva.

Hugh Piper is a director at Ancrum Advisory. He also edits The Policymaker, a digital publication of the Australian Public Policy Institute. Hugh has previously worked at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy & Defence Dialogue, and as a ministerial speechwriter and strategic policy adviser at the Department of Foreign Affairs & Trade. He holds a master’s degree in public policy from the University of Oxford and degrees in law and history from the University of Sydney.

Dr. Marina Yue Zhang is an associate professor at the Australia-China Relations Institute, University of Technology Sydney (UTS: ACRI). Prior to this position, Marina worked for UNSW in Australia and Tsinghua University in China. Marina holds a bachelor’s degree in biological science from Peking University, an MBA and a PhD from Australian National University. Marina’s research interests cover China’s innovation policy and practice, latecomers’ catch-up, emerging and disruptive technologies, and network effects in digital transformation. She focuses on industrial such as semiconductors, biotechnology and biopharmaceuticals, and clean energy transition. She is the author of three books, including “Demystifying China's Innovation Machine: Chaotic Order,” co-authored with Mark Dodgson and David Gann (Oxford University Press, 2022). In addition to academic publications in technology and innovation, Marina also writes analysis pieces on the intersection of technology and international relations in The National Interest, The Diplomat, The Conversation, The Interpreter by Lowy Institute, East Asia Forum, and comments on science and technology issues on BBC News, Bloomberg TV and other news outlets.

Dr Pierre Pahlavi is a full professor at the Royal Military College of Canada in the Department of Defence Studies, co-located with the Canadian Forces College, Canada’s Staff and War College. His research focuses on Iran and its asymmetric strategies, public diplomacy, and the use of force in the international system. He has published in various journals in strategic and security studies and has recently published a book in French on the Iranian revolution, Le Marécage des Ayatollahs, prized by the Académie française. He has a PhD in political science from McGill University, Montreal, Canada.

Dr Adam Simpson is Senior Lecturer in International Studies in the School of Society and Culture, Adelaide University. He has held a 6-month Visiting Research Fellowship at the Centre for Southeast Asian Studies (CSEAS), Kyoto University, and Visiting Scholar positions at CSEAS, SOAS, University of London, Queen Mary, University of London and Keele University. His articles have appeared in journals such as Environmental Politics, Third World Quarterly, Society & Natural Resources and Pacific Review. He is the author of Energy, Governance and Security in Thailand and Myanmar (Burma): A Critical Approach to Environmental Politics in the South (Routledge 2014; Updated Paperback Edition, NUS Press 2017) and is lead editor of the Routledge Handbook of Contemporary Myanmar (2018) and Myanmar: Politics, Economy and Society (Routledge: First Edition 2021, Second Edition 2024).