Alan Gamlen

Alan Gamlen is Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at The Australian National University, Canberra.

Pearls and Irritations guest Eva Bartlett

Pearls and Irritations guest Eva Bartlett

Eva Karene Bartlett is a Canadian-American journalist who has spent years on the ground covering conflict zones in the Middle East, especially in Syria and Palestine (where she lived for nearly four years). She was a recipient of the 2017 International Journalism Award for International Reporting, granted by the Mexican Journalists’ Press Club (founded in 1951), and was the first  recipient of the Serena Shim Award for Uncompromised Integrity in Journalism. See her extended bio on her blog  In Gaza. She tweets from  @EvaKBartlett and has the Telegram Channel,  Reality Theories.

Arseniy Kotov

Arseniy Kotov born in Samara in 1988, Arseniy Kotov grew up in an urban landscape consisting of standardised Soviet-era housing blocks and industrial towers. He has been taking photographs of city landscapes since he was a teenager.

Paul A Komesaroff

Paul Komesaroff is Professor of Medicine at Monash University and Executive Director of the international NGO Global Reconciliation. His books include Experiments in L_ove and Death and Riding a Crocodile: A physician’s tale._

Benedict Rogers

Benedict Rogers, a human rights activist and writer, is the co-founder and chief executive of Hong Kong Watch, and Senior Analyst for East Asia at Christian Solidarity Worldwide, a rights organisation specializing in freedom of religion or belief. He is the author of seven books, and his faith journey is told in his book  “From Burma to Rome: A Journey into the Catholic Church” (Gracewing, 2015). His new book,  “The China Nexus: Thirty Years In and Around the Chinese Communist Party’s Tyranny”, was published in 2022 by Optimum Publishing International.

Zouhir Gabsi

Zouhir Gabsi

Zouhir Gabsi is a senior lecturer in Arabic and Islamic studies at Deakin University, Melbourne, Australia. Zouhir was named Australia’s lead researcher in Middle Eastern and Islamic studies by The Australian Research Magazine for 2024. His recent publications on Islamophobia, including his 2024’s book Muslim Perspectives on Islamophobia: From Misconceptions to Reason, the Arab Spring and religious and political discourses, demonstrate the importance of language in sociological and political narratives. His contributions and broad interests push the boundaries of knowledge and fill a vacuum generally overlooked by researchers.

Joshua Black

Visitor, School of History, Australian National University

Dr Joshua Black is a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at The Australia Institute, and a visitor with the School of History at the Australian National University, Canberra. His PhD thesis, entitled ‘Bleeding Off the Page: A Cultural History of the Political Memoir in Australia’, was completed in March 2023. Josh has also held a Palace Letters Fellowship with the Whitlam Institute at Western Sydney University.

Ray Champ

Ray Champ has worked in the Public Service for five years and is studying a bachelor of economics at Macquarie University.

David Lee

David Lee

David Lee is Associate Professor in the University of New South Wales, Canberra, National Archives of Australia Cabinet Historian, author of The Second Rush: Mining and the Transformation of Australia and co-editor of a book of official documents on Australia and the People’s Republic of China, 1949-1972.

Roger Gurr

Roger Gurr

Roger Gurr Associate Professor Gurr, MB BS DPM MRC Psych, FRANZCP is the Clinical Director of headspace Early Psychosis in Western Sydney. He also holds a Conjoint Appointment in Psychiatry, Western Sydney University Faculty of Medicine and is the Board Chair for the NSW Service for the Treatment & Rehabilitation of Torture & Trauma Survivors (STARTTS). He was awarded the NSW Government Human Rights Medal in 2021. He is presenting at the NDIS and Mental Health Conference on Tuesday 21 January at the ICC in Sydney.

Guesr author Andrew Y Glikson

Andrew Y Glikson Earth and climate scientist. The University of New South Wales.

Craig Fowler

Dr Craig Fowler’s diverse experience in Public Administration and Higher Education in Executive roles makes him exceptionally well qualified to reflect on the topic of diversity in career experience and its potential benefits for senior executive service (SES) leadership in the public sector.

Frank Bongiorno

Frank Bongiorno AM (born Nhill, Victoria, 1969) is an Australian labour, political and cultural historian. Prior to joining the Australian National University, he held lecturing positions at King’s College London (2007-11), the University of New England (2000-07) and Griffith University (1996), and also taught previously at the ANU (1994). He has been an Australian Research Council Postdoctoral Fellow at the ANU (1997 and 1998-2000), and in 1997-8 was Smuts Visiting Fellow in Commonwealth Studies at the University of Cambridge and Mellon Visiting Fellow at the University of Texas at Austin. He has worked for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade.

Wendy Hunt

Wendy Hunt is the Academic Chair of Food Science and Nutrition at Murdoch University. She has over 25 years of experience in the field of Food Science, having roles in management, research, teaching, and services to the food industry. Her research is in food and human health with particular interest in seafood, starch, grains, fibre and satiety.

Darryl Mohr

Darryl Mohr is a Strategy and Policy Adviser at the Australia India Institute.

Shuyang Yu

BA student at Beijing Foreign Studies University, major in English literature, intern at the Center for China and Globalisation.

Richard Wolff

Richard Wolff is the author of Capitalism Hits the Fan and Capitalism’s Crisis Deepens. He is founder of Democracy at Work.

Sue Wittenoom

Sue Wittenoom is a Perth born architect who lives and works on Gadigal land in Sydney. She is the founder of The Soft Build.

Tegan Cohen

Tegan Cohen Postdoctoral Research Fellow, Digital Media Research Centre, Queensland University of Technology

John Quelch

John Quelch, teacher, community development worker, secretary of IPAN Geelong, Victoria South West Group.

Ainsley Barton

Ainsley Barton

Ainsley Barton is an alias, he is a former political adviser to the Liberal Party and mainstream media journalist, presently engaged in consulting work in Canberra.

Lisa Singh

Lisa Singh is the CEO of the Australia India Institute, and a Cricket Australia Multicultural Ambassador.

Xin Ping

Xin Ping is a China-based commentator on international affairs.

Jeremiah Kenner

Jeremiah Kenner

Jeremy Kenner is a public servant, employed by an Australian government agency. An American by birth and rearing and an educator and lawyer by training, his professional interests lie at the juncture of research, clinical care, public health, policy making and regulation of science and technology. He also draws on a reservoir of Jewish learning received earlier in life at the feet of his father and grandfather.

Judah Tana

Judah Tana is the Australian founder-director of Global Advance Projects which has rescued hundreds of trafficking victims who arrived in Myanmar from more than 60 countries as far-flung as Uganda and Morocco.

John H Howard

John H Howard

John is a researcher, policy analyst, management adviser, and author with three decades of experience advising governments, universities, and industry on science, research, and innovation policy and strategy.

John Howard

John Howard

John is a researcher, policy analyst, management adviser, and author with three decades of experience advising governments, universities, and industry on science, research, and innovation policy and strategy.

Graham Pickering

Graham Pickering

Graham Pickering is a long-term resident of Taiwan. He is an educator and author. He is fluent in Chinese and getting there in Taiwanese. His interests include Education, Taiwan, China and Cross-Strait Relations.

Keith Bryant

Keith Bryant

After working at the stock exchanges in London and Johannesburg in the 1980s, Keith was appointed a partner of Bain and Company in 1989, and subsequently a Director at Deutsche Bank Australia for a decade. Keith previously held leadership positions at Wentworth Community Housing, the Constellation Project, and the Benevolent Society. He is Chair of the Board for the Foyer Foundation, and CEO of the Open Dialogue Centre.

Wen Ying

Wen Ying is a a Beijing-based commentator on current affairs.

Peter Layton

Peter Layton is a visiting fellow at the Griffith Asia Institute, an associate fellow at the Royal United Services Institute and the author of Grand Strategy.

Zoltan Nemeth

Zoltan Nemeth lives in Budapest, is a member of the Ohel Avraham Neolog Jewish Congregation, and writes for Hungarian Jewish publications.

Michelle Riedlinger

Michelle Riedlinger is an Associate Professor in the Queensland University of Technology’s School of Communication.

Walther Bücklers

Walther Bücklers

Walther earned a B.A. in Media Management from the University of Europe for Applied Sciences in Germany and an MBA from the University of Oregon in the United States. For the last 12 years, he has has been living and working in China. Previous articles of his were published on Nachdenkseiten and Telepolis in Germany, and China Daily in China.

John Whitbeck

John V. Whitbeck is a Paris-based international lawyer.

Charissa Suli

Charissa Suli

Reverend Charissa Suli is the 17th President of the Uniting Church in Australia. Her election to this position in 2024 marked a historic milestone as she became the youngest person, the first person of non-Anglo-Celtic background, and the first of Pacifica heritage to hold this esteemed position. Reverend Suli’s leadership is deeply rooted in her unwavering commitment to inclusivity, community building, and transformative ministry.