Australian foreign policy; US politics and foreign policy; Asia and the Pacific; Global institutions

Strategy and geopolitics; global governance; Australian foreign policy; Southeast Asia; Data analysis

Ahmed Albayrak is a Research Assistant in the Lowy Institute’s Indo-Pacific Development Centre. Prior to joining the Lowy Institute, he completed a Master of Environmental and Resource Economics degree at the Australian National University where he specialised in economic modelling. His research interests include structural transformation, energy transition and climate change policy. He also holds a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Melbourne.

Australian foreign policy news; long-form research publishing on strategy, security, geopolitics and economics.

Aid to Pacific Islands, Pacific development policy, Pacific women’s development, Pacific Island politics, remittances.

Public finance, debt management and crisis, poverty and inequality, growth and emerging markets

Politics and economics in Asia and the Pacific; Aid and international development policy.

Gilliane De Gorostiza is a Research Assistant at the Lowy Institute working on the Pacific Aid Map. Her research interests include foreign policy in Asia and the Pacific, nowcasting, and identifying sources of persistent changes in macroeconomic and financial conditions.

Prior to joining the Institute in 2023, Gilliane worked as an Economic Researcher at the Asian Development Bank, where she contributed to ADB's flagship publication, the Asian Development Outlook (ADO), and a range of Knowledge and Support Technical Assistance (KSTA) projects. She also gained valuable experience working in various Philippine government agencies, including the National Economic Development Authority (NEDA), the House of Representatives — Ways and Means Committee, and the Department of Science and Technology (DOST).

Gilliane holds an MSc in Industrial Economics from the University of Asia and the Pacific in the Philippines and is currently completing her PhD in Economics at the University of Sydney.

Pacific Islands aid and development; development finance

Australian foreign policy and politics; Australia’s intelligence services; international relations in Asia

Climate adaptation, foreign aid and finance, decarbonising development

Pacific Islands development and security, resource management, human security and resilience. 

Terrorism and violent extremism; digital technology; disinformation; authoritarianism; national security; emergency management and countering violent extremism; crisis and natural disasters; radicalisation; counterterrorism; policy; Middle East; US national security

Economics and politics in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific; trade policy; economic history

Climate change policy, climate finance, climate change implementation and evaluation

China’s political system and the workings and structure of the communist party; China’s foreign relations, with an emphasis on ties with Japan, the two Koreas, and Southeast Asia; Australia’s relations with Asia.

Australian foreign policy and public opinion, climate change and sustainability, multilateral diplomacy, China and Hong Kong.

Dr Hilman Palaon is a Research Fellow at the Lowy Institute in the Indo-Pacific Development Centre. His work focuses on digital economy issues in the Indo-Pacific region. Hilman has extensive experience in government, development, engineering, fintech, digital platform, audit and consulting, and academia. He has previously worked for Ernst & Young, USAID, TNP2K (the Indonesian Government's National Team for the Acceleration of Poverty Reduction), Gojek/GOTO, and the Cambridge Centre for Alternative Finance at the University of Cambridge. He has also worked as a consultant/adviser for the Asian Development Bank, MoneyGram, Eachmile Technologies, Novus Technologies, and Protiviti.

Hilman holds a PhD in Management Science from the Bandung Institute of Technology, Indonesia. He studied in Germany and Spain for his postgraduate degrees: Process Engineering and Energy Technology at the University of Applied Sciences Bremerhaven, Global Management at the University of Applied Sciences Bremen, and International Marketing at the University of Valencia. His undergraduate degree is in Electrical Engineering from the University of Indonesia. His research interests are the digital economy, economic empowerment, financial inclusion, and technology innovation.

Indo-Pacific strategy; Australian foreign policy; Southeast Asia.

Climate change, including climate change adaptation, loss and damage, international policy, and climate finance; and small island developing states

International economic policy; Asia Pacific economies; macroeconomics; economic development; aid and development finance; globalisation; geo-economics.  

Australian foreign and defence policy, China’s military forces, US defence and foreign policy, drones and other military technology. Also, trends in global democracy.

Statistics

Australian foreign policy in the Pacific; Australia-PNG relations; geopolitics in the Pacific; Melanesia; conflict analysis and fragile states

Foreign aid, global development finance

Macroeconomic policy; economic reform; the role of financial institutions in economic development; Myanmar; Indo-Pacific

Australian defence policy; military capability; military history

International economics and political economy, geoeconomics, growth and development, macroeconomics

Southeast Asian defence and security