I am Professor of International Security in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Adelaide. You can see my professorial lecture here. Before moving to Adelaide in July 2020, I spent more than eight years in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University (ANU).

I am also the research director of the Security in the Pacific Islands program in the Stretton Institute at the University of Adelaide, and a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

I am the author or editor of ten books, including Constitution making during State building (CUP 2014), Pacific Power? Australia's Strategy in the Pacific Islands (MUP 2017), and Girt by Sea: Re-Imagining Australia’s Security (with Rebecca Strating; La Trobe UP 2024).

I am the chief investigator of the Regional Perspectives Research Project with partners based in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It is funded under a collaborative research agreement with the Australian Defence Science and Technology Group.

I am also the chief investigator of a Defence Strategic Policy Grant analysing how tools of statecraft are used in the Pacific Islands region.

I am also the chief investigator of another Defence Strategic Policy Grant considering how Pacific Island countries and their partners can best target and coordinate maritime security assistance.

Finally, I am chief investigator of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project analysing the operation of the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands. 

I previously conducted Australian Research Council Discovery Projects on the impact of political reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific and state-building in Melanesia and a Defence Strategic Policy Grant analysing the potential of a networked security architecture in the Pacific Islands.

I am the editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs. I am on the editorial boards of Peacebuilding and Global Studies Quarterly, and the international editorial board of The Round Table. I was previously on the editorial advisory committee of Asia Policy. Between 2019 and 2021 I was an Associate Editor of Peacebuilding.

I completed my PhD in 2012 at the University of Cambridge as a Poynton Cambridge Australia and Wolfson College Commonwealth scholar. I completed Masters degrees in Arts and Law at the University of Melbourne.

I have been a Fulbright Scholar at the Walker Institute of International & Area Studies, University of South Carolina; a Visiting Scholar at the State, Society & Governance in Melanesia Project, ANU; an Honorary Fellow of the School of Social & Political Sciences, University of Melbourne; and a Visiting Scholar at the East-West Center, Honolulu.

I am a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. In 2016, I won a National Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning and ANU Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence. I have taught at the ANU, Australian War College, University of Cambridge, and the University of Melbourne. I have also delivered professional education programs for the Australian War College, the Department of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of Home Affairs.

I am a member of the Advisory Group of AP4D (the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy, and Defence Dialogue). I am on the Advisory Board of Women in International Security - Australia. I am an Expert Associate of the National Security College at the ANU. I regularly brief government agencies, conduct consultancies for NGOs, write analyses for think tanks, and participate in international strategic dialogues, including as a delegate to the Australia-America Leadership Dialogue. I have been a visiting scholar at the Australian Civil Military Centre and was member of the expert advisory group for the Peacifica/Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University research project ‘Pacific Perspectives on the World’.

I was previously a lawyer at Allens Arthur Robinson (now Allens Linklaters) and I am admitted as a barrister and solicitor in the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia.

I have three children and was on maternity leave January-November 2015 and February 2017-September 2018.