Supervision

I welcome expressions of interest for PhD, Masters and Honours level research from students with excellent academic records and an interest in researching topics relating to:

Security in the Pacific Islands, including Australia’s foreign and strategic policy in the region, the challenges facing Pacific Island states, and the changing geopolitics of the region.
Security in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia’s foreign and strategic policy in the region.
Peace and security, including humanitarian intervention, peacebuilding, and reconciliation and transitional justice.

I am currently supervising PhD students working on the following topics:

Jack Butcher, UoA, ‘Enhanced strategic engagement: Exploring the proliferation of strategic partnerships in Australia’s Indo-Pacific foreign policy’.
Benjamin Cherry-Smith, UoA, ‘All the way with the USA? The effect of the US-Australia alliance on Australian Foreign Policy’.
Priestley Habru, UoA, ‘Broader security concerns in the Indo-Pacific must be defined and framed within the local context’.
Maima Koro, UoA, ‘Analysing Pacific policing to meet complex and uncertain challenges of the future: Case Studies - Bougainville, Fiji and Samoa’.
Salote Tagivakatini, UoA, ‘Australia's Defence, Diplomacy & Development Interface – Why doing the same thing and expecting different results will no longer work in the Pacific’.
Geyi Xie, UoA, ‘Reassessing China’s identity: Interaction with Oceania over the last five decades’.
William Waqavakatoga, UoA, ‘Pacific Small Island Developing States and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific’.

I have previously supervised the following thesis topics to successful completion:

Dahlia Simangan, PhD, ANU, 'The limits of liberal peacebuilding and the pitfalls of local involvement: Cambodia, Kosovo and Timor-Leste in retrospect' - completed 2017. Now an Associate Professor (tenure-track) at Hiroshima University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences.
Henrietta McNeill, PhD, ANU, 'Exporting offenders, or creating criminal networks? Criminal deportees and their effect on transnational crime prevention and Pacific regional security' - completed 2024. Now a Research Fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.
Miranda Booth, PhD, CDU, ‘Effective Foreign Military Engagement in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief: Australia and Pacific Island states’ - completed 2024. Now a Lecturer in Contemporary Defence & Strategic Studies at the University of New South Wales.
Rachel Jones, MA, ANU, 'The evolution of Australia’s maritime security priorities in the South Pacific since the Second World War' - completed 2014. A serving Royal Australian Navy officer.
Laura Ball, Hons, ANU, 'In Need of A New Strategy?: The Australian Government’s Top-Down Approach to the Securitization of Development in the South Pacific' - completed 2014.
Richard Filer, Hons, ANU, 'The development of policing in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville: interactions between state and non-state institutions' - completed 2015.
Corey O’Dwyer, Hons. UoA, ‘From Aid and Development to Security and Defence: Understanding the European Union’s Pacific Foreign Policy Pivot’ - completed 2024.
Ruben Seaton, Hons, ANU, 'Assumptions and Interests: Australia's policy in the Pacific Islands since 1987' - completed 2019.
Robert Van Gorp, Hons, UoA, ‘Not conductive to our survival. Australia’s deployment of a climate narrative in the Pacific Islands region. What it entails, what it means and what it illustrates about Australian conceptions of itself, the Pacific Islands region and its place in the Indo-Pacific’ - completed 2024.
Jay Vlazlovski, Hons, ANU, 'Transnational crime in the South Pacific: The Australian response' - completed 2015.

Supervision

I welcome expressions of interest for PhD, Masters and Honours level research from students with excellent academic records and an interest in researching topics relating to:

Security in the Pacific Islands, including Australia’s foreign and strategic policy in the region, the challenges facing Pacific Island states, and the changing geopolitics of the region.

Security in the Indo-Pacific, including Australia’s foreign and strategic policy in the region.

Peace and security, including humanitarian intervention, peacebuilding, and reconciliation and transitional justice.

I am currently supervising PhD students working on the following topics:

Jack Butcher, UoA, ‘Enhanced strategic engagement: Exploring the proliferation of strategic partnerships in Australia’s Indo-Pacific foreign policy’.

Benjamin Cherry-Smith, UoA, ‘All the way with the USA? The effect of the US-Australia alliance on Australian Foreign Policy’.

Priestley Habru, UoA, ‘Broader security concerns in the Indo-Pacific must be defined and framed within the local context’.

Maima Koro, UoA, ‘Analysing Pacific policing to meet complex and uncertain challenges of the future: Case Studies - Bougainville, Fiji and Samoa’.

Salote Tagivakatini, UoA, ‘Australia's Defence, Diplomacy & Development Interface – Why doing the same thing and expecting different results will no longer work in the Pacific’.

Geyi Xie, UoA, ‘Reassessing China’s identity: Interaction with Oceania over the last five decades’.

William Waqavakatoga, UoA, ‘Pacific Small Island Developing States and the geopolitics of the Indo-Pacific’.

I have previously supervised the following thesis topics to successful completion:

Dahlia Simangan, PhD, ANU, 'The limits of liberal peacebuilding and the pitfalls of local involvement: Cambodia, Kosovo and Timor-Leste in retrospect' - completed 2017. Now an Associate Professor (tenure-track) at Hiroshima University’s School of Humanities and Social Sciences.

Henrietta McNeill, PhD, ANU, 'Exporting offenders, or creating criminal networks? Criminal deportees and their effect on transnational crime prevention and Pacific regional security' - completed 2024. Now a Research Fellow in the Department of Pacific Affairs at the Australian National University.

Miranda Booth, PhD, CDU, ‘Effective Foreign Military Engagement in Humanitarian Assistance and Disaster Relief: Australia and Pacific Island states’ - completed 2024. Now a Lecturer in Contemporary Defence & Strategic Studies at the University of New South Wales.

Rachel Jones, MA, ANU, 'The evolution of Australia’s maritime security priorities in the South Pacific since the Second World War' - completed 2014. A serving Royal Australian Navy officer.

Laura Ball, Hons, ANU, 'In Need of A New Strategy?: The Australian Government’s Top-Down Approach to the Securitization of Development in the South Pacific' - completed 2014.

Richard Filer, Hons, ANU, 'The development of policing in the Autonomous Region of Bougainville: interactions between state and non-state institutions' - completed 2015.

Corey O’Dwyer, Hons. UoA, ‘From Aid and Development to Security and Defence: Understanding the European Union’s Pacific Foreign Policy Pivot’ - completed 2024.

Ruben Seaton, Hons, ANU, 'Assumptions and Interests: Australia's policy in the Pacific Islands since 1987' - completed 2019.

Jay Vlazlovski, Hons, ANU, 'Transnational crime in the South Pacific: The Australian response' - completed 2015.