Alexander Titus
Alexander Titus is Researcher at the South Asian Research and Advocacy Hub and a recipient of the Australian Government’s 2024 New Colombo Plan Scholarship for India.
Megan Russell
Megan Russell is CODEPINK’s China is Not Our Enemy Campaign Coordinator.
She graduated from the London School of Economics with a Master’s Degree in Conflict Studies. Prior to that, she attended NYU where she studied Conflict, Culture, and International Law. Megan spent one year studying in Shanghai, and over eight years studying Chinese Mandarin. Her research focuses on the intersection between US-China affairs, peace-building, and international development.
Michael Dove
Michael Dove is a geographer, a demographer, and convenor of the Secularism Australia Forum and the ‘Census21 – Not Religious?’ campaign.
Michael Dove is Convenor of the Secularism Australia Forum
Stewart Sweeney
Stewart Sweeney is a writer and public policy advocate with a longstanding interest in the evolution and future of capitalism. He migrated from Scotland to Adelaide in 1975 to work with Premier Don Dunstan on industrial democracy. A former academic and trade unionist, he continues to contribute to public debate on economic justice, democratic reform, and sustainable development. His work reflects a deep commitment to the common good and the role of public purpose in shaping Australia’s future.
Phyllis Bennis
Phyllis Bennisis afellow of the Institute for Policy Studies and serves as international adviser for Jewish Voice for Peace. Her most recent book is the7thupdated edition of_Understanding the Palestinian-Israeli Conflict: APrimer_.
Larry Stillman
Dr Larry Stillman is an Adjunct Senior Research Fellow at Monash University and a committee member of the Australian Jewish Democratic Society. He writes on his own behalf.
Pearls and Irritations guest Omar Ahmed
Omar Ahmed is a UK-based analyst and journalist focused on the political and religious affairs of West Asia. He holds an MSc in International Security and Global Governance from Birkbeck, University of London.
Irene Watson
Irene Watson belongs to the Tanganekald, Meintangk, Portuwutj and Bunganditj Peoples. With a long commitment to obligations to care for country and people Irene is a research Professor of Law at the University of South Australia. A prolific writer her book Aboriginal Peoples, Colonialism and International Law: Raw Law, was published in 2015.
Fengshi Wu
Fengshi Wu is Associate Professor in Political Science and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Vibhu Mishra
Public Information Officer at UN News, specialising in reporting on the UN’s global efforts across political, security, humanitarian, and development sectors. Passionate about delivering accurate and impactful information to highlight the Organisation’s diverse initiatives and contributions to solving global challenges.
Chelsea Hunnisett
Chelsea Hunnisett is a Laureate PhD Candidate and Government Relations Specialist in the Planetary Health Equity Hothouse at The Australian National University. Chelsea’s research focuses on planetary health equity metrics within Australia’s approach to the wellbeing economy. Chelsea is also an experienced policy, advocacy and government relations specialist with expertise in planetary health, commercial determinants of health and preventive health policy.
Wang Wen
Wang Wen is the dean of Chongyang Institute of Financial studies, Renmin University of China, and the executive director of the China-US People to People Exchange Research Centre.
Liu Chang
Liu Chang is a senior editor at the International News Department, Chinas Xinhua News Agency. He used to station in the agencys Cairo office for two years, and was a visiting scholar to Middlebury Institute of International Studies at Monterey in 2018.
Andrew Jaspan
Andrew Jaspan is the Editor-in-Chief and Founder, 360info; previously created and founded The Conversation websites; Editor-in-Chief of The Age; Editor of The Observer, The Scotsman, The Big Issue (London), Glasgow Sunday Herald
Stephen Lake
Dr Stephen Lake is a founding member of Academics for Public Universities and Public Universities Australia. He studied history and theology at Flinders University and completed his PhD on medieval monasticism at the University of Cambridge. He subsequently taught at the University of Tbingen and the Universit de Paris IV-Sorbonne followed by a research position at the Universitt Konstanz. He is currently enrolled in a second PhD at the University of Sydney with a project on ‘The Contingency of Perception: The Responses of the Frankfurt School and Contemporaries to Fascism, ca. 1920-ca. 1950’. He lectures regularly for his local U3A group in the Southern Highlands, NSW.
Yunkang Liu
Yunkang Liu is PhD candidate in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, the University of New South Wales, Sydney.
Amy King
Amy King is Associate Professor in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University’s Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs. She has published widely on China-Japan relations, the economics-security nexus in Asia, and the role of ideas in International Relations. The author of China-Japan Relations After World War II: Empire, Industry and War, 1949–1971 (Cambridge University Press, 2016),
Paul Smyth
Honorary Researcher, University of Divinity Formerly, Profesoor of Social Policy, University of Melbourne Director of Research & Policy, Brotherhood of St Laurence Research Officer, Uniya- Jesuit Research and Action Centre, Kings Cross.
Terence Wood
Terence Wood is a Fellow at the Development Policy Centre. His research focuses on political governance in Western Melanesia, and Australian and New Zealand aid.
Gregory Elich
Gregory Elich is a Korea Policy Institute board member. He is a contributor to the collection, Sanctions as War: Anti-Imperialist Perspectives on American Geo-Economic Strategy (Haymarket Books, 2023). His website is https://gregoryelich.org Follow him on Twitter at @GregoryElich.
Scott Ritter
Scott Ritters areas of expertise include American foreign policy, national security, arms control, the Middle East, Iran and Russia. He recently wrotethe rift between the CIA and Donald Trumpmay not be such a bad thing given that the president is pushing a policy of reconciliation with Russia that the CIA neither supports nor is equipped to effectively advise him on. In addition to his impeccable credentials, Ritter is an electrifying public speaker who is world-renowned for correctly insisting Iraq had no significant weapons of mass destruction when the Bush administration claimed otherwise. His eighth book,Deal of the Century: How Iran Blocked the Wests Road to War, will be published in June.
Aaron Boxerman
I am a reporter for The New York Times covering Israel and Gaza. I’m based in Jerusalem.
I work on the Live team, a department of The Times dedicated to breaking news. Recently I have worked almost exclusively on the Israel-Hamas war, although I also occasionally write about other parts of the Middle East.
David Lindenmayer
Professor David Lindenmayer is a distinguished Australian scientist and academic, specialising in landscape ecology, conservation, and biodiversity. His research focuses on integrating nature conservation with agricultural production, improving biodiversity conservation in forestry and plantations, and enhancing fire management practices. With over 940 peer-reviewed papers and 49 books, David is one of the most published ecologists globally. He leads large-scale, long-term research programs in south-eastern Australia. A Fellow of the Australian Academy of Science, he has received numerous prestigious awards, including the ESA Whittaker Award, multiple Eureka Prizes, and the Australian Natural History Medal.
Narelle Bedford
Narelle Bedford, is a Yuin woman and an Assistant Professor in the Faculty of Law at Bond University. Her area of expertise is Administrative Law, concentrating on all forms of accountability over government decision-making. Prior to academia, she was Judges Associate, and a public servant in the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Attorney-Generals Department.
Peter Curtis
Peter Curtis is an educator in the public system in the ACT and has taught the early years through to high school. He has recently published, ‘A Meeting of Minds’, an imagined dialogue between Paulo Freire and Karl Marx.
Bernadette Zaydan
Bernadette Zaydan is an Australian lawyer with a diverse practice in commercial, public, and regulatory law, with about 10 years of experience. She’s particularly passionate about the intersection of law and human rights.
Tristan Edis
Tristan Edis is the Director – Analysis and Advisory at Green Energy Markets. Tristan’s involvement in the clean energy sector and related government climate change and energy policy issues began back in 2000.
Sophie Howe
Sophie Howe was the inaugural Future Generations Commissioner of Wales from 2016 to January 2023. Sustainability futures and Wellbeing adviser and the first Future Generations Commissioner for Wales TED Speaker and public policy expert.
Walden Bello
Walden Bello, a columnist for Foreign Policy in Focus, is the author or co-author of 19 books, the latest of which are Capitalism’s Last Stand? (London: Zed, 2013) and State of Fragmentation: the Philippines in Transition (Quezon City: Focus on the Global South and FES, 2014).
Maria Tanyag
Maria Tanyagis a Senior Lecturer in International Relations, and the Deputy Director for the Philippines Institute, at the Australia National University.
Elizabeth Thurbon
Elizabeth Thurbon is Professor of International Political Economy, Deputy Head of School and Director of Research in the School of Social Sciences at UNSW Sydney. She is also Director of the Green Energy Statecraft Project, a collaborative initiative between UNSW Sydney, the University of Melbourne and the University of Sydney.
Guest author Rod Taylor
Rod Taylor Co-editor of Sustainability and the New Economics. And radio broadcaster and science columnist with ACM newspapers and author of Ten Journeys on a Fragile Planet (Odyssey, 2020).
Guest author Nicholas Farrelly
Nicholas Farrelly Professor and Head of Social Sciences, University of Tasmania
Meg Hart
Meg Hart is an organisational psychologist and writer. She spent over 30 years in Hong Kong and China and is a graduate and post-graduate of Hong Kong and Sydney Universities. Currently a Fellow and Guest Lecturer at Nan Tien Institute for Buddhist Studies in Wollongong, she is writing a book about her lived experience of the two different but potentially complementary cultures of China and Australia.
Stephen Semler
Producer of charts and policy analysis for the working class. Co-founder, SPRI (@security_reform, securityreform.org). Available for consulting. Find me on Bluesky & Twitter: @stephensemler
Dean Ashenden
Dean Ashendenhas worked in and around schools as a teacher, academic and consultant, and in journalism. He has contributed to all major print outlets and to many professional, academic, and social affairs journals. His previous book,Telling Tennants Story, was inaugural winner of the Australian Political Book of the Year Award. He is a Senior Honorary Fellow at the University of Melbourne.
Dean Ashenden has commented on education in all major Australian print outlets. His Unbeaching the Whale: Can Australian schooling be reformed? was published earlier this year by Inside Story