Saffron Williams
Saffron Williams is a law student at Flinders University with a strong interest in international law, refugee protection, and human rights. As a mixed-race Australian with a personal connection to Australia’s humanitarian visa system, she is passionate about advocating for more compassionate and effective refugee policies. She currently works in a public hospital emergency department and previously gained experience in legal administration. Through the Global Voices Fellowship, Saffron hopes to contribute to national policy reform while engaging in international dialogue on refugee and asylum issues at the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee. Saffron will be attending the United Nations General Assembly’s Sixth Committee as part of the Global Voices Policy Fellowship. Saffron’s Fellowship is supported by the Law Foundation of South Australia
James David Spellman
James David Spellman, a graduate of Oxford University, is principal of Strategic Communications LLC, a consulting firm based in Washington, DC.
Kevin Ting-Chen Sun
Kevin Ting-Chen Sun is a senior legislative policy advisor at Taiwan’s Legislative Yuan. He currently works with legislator Ching-hui Chen and previously advised former Foreign Affairs and National Defence Committee Chair Charles I-hsin Chen. He is also a practising attorney and a non-resident research fellow at the Institute for Taiwan-America Studies in Washington, DC.
Anoma Pieris
Anoma Pieris is Professor of Architecture and Associate Dean Research at the Melbourne School of Design. Her recent books include the multi-authored Immigrant Industry: Building Postwar Australia (Berghahn 2024); with Lynne Horiuchi, The Architecture of Confinement: incarceration camps of the Pacific War (Cambridge University Press 2022); and the anthology: Architecture on the Borderline: Boundary Politics and Built Space (Architext 2019). In 2022, she was guest curator for the Museum of Modern Art, New York exhibition The Project of Independence: Architectures of Decolonisation in South Asia 1947-1985. Anoma’s recent work is on war cemeteries across the Indo Pacific region.
Bart Shteinman
Bart Shteinman is an Executive Member of the Jewish Council of Australia and is an expert in public policy, specialising in climate change and education policy. He grew up attending Jewish schools in Sydney and has worked as an interfaith program coordinator in the NSW education system.
Bart writes on - Homilies & Addresses
Pierre Pahlavi
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.
Mausam Kumar
Mausam Kumar is postdoctoral researcher at the Center for Policy Research on Energy and Environment, School of Public and International Affairs, Princeton University.
Ann Pavet
Ann Pavett, retired teacher/lecturer of foreign languages. 15 years editor of Neighbours Paper (Ealing,London), a community journal for my locality. Lifelong interest in the peace movement in UK. Moved to Austra;ia in 2012 to be with family..
Zhou Bo
Senior Colonel Zhou Bo (ret) is a senior fellow of the Centre for International Security and Strategy at Tsinghua University and a China Forum expert. He was director of Centre for Security Cooperation of the Office for International Military Cooperation of the Ministry of National Defence of China.
Dr Rajesh Gopalakrishnan Nair
Dr Rajesh Gopalakrishnan Nair is an Innovation Scientist at CSIRO, with extensive experience in public policy and governance. His research interests are centred on innovation policy, with a particular focus on its design, implementation, and institutional dynamics.
Chheng Kimlong
Dr Kimlong is President of the Asian Vision Institute (AVI) in Phnom Penh. He holds a PhD in Economics from the Australian National University, a Master in Economics from Kobe University, and a Master in Business Administration from Preston University. He was economic-commercial specialist for the United States Embassy in Phnom Penh from 2008 to 2012. Before that, he was research consultant at the Cambodia Development Resource Institute (CDRI), research assistant at the Japan International Cooperation Agency (JICA), and socio-economic specialist for aid-funded rural community-development projects.
Mariam Tohamy
Mariam Tohamy is a teacher and member of Teachers and School Staff for Palestine. She is a Palestine solidarity activist. She is writing in a personal capacity.
Danny Haiphong
Danny Haiphong is an independent journalist and researcher in the United States. He is a contributing editor to the Black Agenda Report, co-editor of Friends of Socialist China and founding member of the No Cold War international campaign.
Miroslav Sandev
Miroslav Sandev is a teacher and member of Teachers and School Staff for Palestine NSW. He has campaigned against anti-Muslim racism and is a Palestine solidarity activist. He is writing in a personal capacity.
Pearls and Irritations guest Mark Kulasingham
Mark Kulasingham grew up in Kuala Lumpur and is a self-confessed Malaysian politics ‘tragic’.
Linda Botterill
Linda Botterill Visiting Fellow, Crawford School of Public Policy, Australian National University
Jim Falk
Jim Falk is a Professorial Fellow in the School of Geography, Earth and Atmospheric Sciences at the University of Melbourne and Emeritus Professor at the University of Wollongong.
Darrin Durant
Darrin Durant is Associate Professor in Science and Technology Studies at the University of Melbourne.
Robert Clynes
Robert Clynes OAM LL.B is a former partner at Minter Ellison (1975 -2005) and ACT Law Society President (1993-95).Barrister ACT Bar 2005- 2022.
Anna Nadolny
Anna Nadolny Research Officer, 100% Renewable Energy Group, Australian National University.
Albert Roman
Albert Roman is a high school teacher who helps students understand Civics, Government, and Economics. He spent time in Jiangsu Province in the late 1990s teaching accounting and finance at a college in Changzhou.
Helen Jarvis
Helen Jarvis, PhD University of Sydney, BA (Hons) Australian National University and former Head, School of Information, Library and Archive Studies, University of New South Wales. Since the mid-1990s, Helen has worked in Cambodia on cultural heritage and documentation and justice for genocide. Helen is currently active in UNESCO’s World Heritage and Memory of the World committees, a Vice-President of the Permanent People’s Tribunal and a Patron of the Australian People’s Inquiry into Campus Free Speech. She holds both Australian and Cambodian nationality and is an Adviser to the Royal Government of Cambodia.
Mandy Chan
Mandy Chan holds a PhD in Global Korean Studies from the Academy of Korean Studies. Her research focuses on gender emancipation and identity politics in the context of modernisation within contemporary Korean society.
Michael Sullivan
Dr Michael Sullivan Adjunct Lecturer, International Relations (International Political Economy; China’s political economy and foreign and defence policies; Indo-Pacific Regionalism; ANZUS+AUKUS), College of Business, Government and Law (BGL), Flinders University. I retired in December 2024.
Emma Dawson
Emma Dawson is Executive Director of Per Capita. She has worked as a researcher at Monash University and the University of Melbourne; in policy and public affairs for SBS and Telstra; and as a senior policy adviser in the Rudd and Gillard Governments.
Bruce Hardy
Bruce Hardy is Executive Director of Energy Futures Foundation and formerly General Manager - Emerging Business for AGL