People
The Lowy Institute has a core of highly credentialed research staff and nonresident fellows. It also draws on external partners and invites leading international figures to participate in the Institute's activities.
Experts
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.
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
China’s state-society relations, Chinese civil society, NGOs, development, social policy, philanthropy, Overseas Chinese communities, Australia-China relations
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
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.
Indo-Pacific strategy; Australian foreign policy; Southeast Asia.
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.
Australian foreign policy in the Pacific; Australia-PNG relations; geopolitics in the Pacific; Melanesia; conflict analysis and fragile states
International economics and political economy, geoeconomics, growth and development, macroeconomics
Nonresident Fellows
Papua New Guinea; The Pacific Islands region; Australia's foreign correspondents
Political and strategic developments in East Asia; transnational security issues; intelligence; Australian national security and defence
Australian economic policy; monetary policy; international economics; banking
Dewi Fortuna Anwar straddles the world of academia, political activism and government. She is a Research Professor at the Research Center for Politics-Indonesian Institute of Sciences (P2P-LIPI) and was the Deputy Chairman for Social Sciences and Humanities-LIPI (IPSK-LIPI) from 2001 to 2010. Dewi is also the Chairman of the Institute for Democracy and Human Rights, The Habibie Center, a private think-tank based in Jakarta. From August 2017 to August 2018 she is Distinguished Visiting Professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. Between October 2010 and May 2015 Dewi served as Deputy Secretary for Political Affairs, and from May 2015 to February 2017 as Deputy for Government Policy Support to Vice President Boediono and Vice President M. Jusuf Kalla of the Republic of Indonesia respectively. In 1998-99 Dewi served as Assistant Minister of State Secretariat for Foreign Affairs during the Habibie Presidency. In 2015 Dewi was appointed a member of the Indonesian Academy of Sciences (AIPI). She has written widely on Indonesia’s foreign policy, Indonesia’s democratization as well as on ASEAN and regional political and security issues. Dewi was a Visiting Fellow at CSEAS, Kyoto University in early 2010, a Visiting Professor at SAIS, Johns Hopkins University in 2007, and a Visiting Fellow at ISEAS, Singapore in 1989. Dewi sits and has sat in a number of national and international advisory boards. She is currently a member of the Governing Board of SIPRI and a Board Member of Shift, based in New York. She served as a member of the Weapons of Mass Destruction Commission (WMDC) in 2004-2006, and a member of the UN Secretary General’s Advisory Board on Disarmament Matters in 2008-2012. Dewi was an APSA Congressional Fellow at the U.S. Congress in 1990-1991. She obtained her PhD from Monash University, Melbourne in 1990, while her M.A. and B.A. (Hons) were from the School of Oriental and African Studies (SOAS), University of London in 1982 and 1981 respectively.
Japan's foreign policy; Australia-Japan relations; Japanese foreign aid
Dr Courtney J. Fung is a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute, an associate professor in the Department of Security Studies & Criminology at Macquarie University, and an associate at the Fairbank Center for Chinese Studies, Harvard University. Her research focuses on how rising powers, such as China and India, address the norms and provisions for a global security order. She is the author of China and Intervention at the UN Security Council: Reconciling Status (Oxford University Press, 2019). She holds a PhD in International Relations from The Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy, Tufts University.
International security; defence and security; Chinese defence policy
International economic policy, economic and financial development, productivity growth, social policy and evaluation
Regional economic integration; Australia's economic relations with East Asia; international financial flows and the global financial architecture; financial sector development in East Asia
Pacific Islands politics; Pacific Islands economic and social development; governance; statebuilding
International security policy; strategic policy; civil-military relations; Indonesian defense and security policy
Elina Noor is Associate Professor, College of Security Studies at the Daniel K. Inouye Asia-Pacific Center for Security Studies in Honolulu, United States.
A native of Malaysia, Elina studies security developments in Southeast Asia. Her research is focused on preventing/countering violent extremism as well as on the intersection of international security and international law with cyberspace. Previously, Elina was Director, Foreign Policy and Security Studies at the Institute of Strategic and International Studies (ISIS) Malaysia, where she worked closely with the Malaysian and other governments on a range of strategic and regional issues. Prior to that, she was a member of the Brookings Institution’s Project on US Relations with the Islamic World in its formative years post 11 September 2001.
Elina serves on the Global Commission on the Stability of Cyberspace and is a member of the United Nations Office of Disarmament Affairs (UNODA)’s roster of experts supporting the UN’s work in building member states’ cyber-related capacity. Elina read law at Oxford University, holds an LLM in Public International Law from London School of Economics and Political Science at University of London, and an MA in Security Studies from Georgetown University.
Pacific and PNG; international development assistance; international health challenges; global issues impacting on indigenous peoples
Mick spent 35 years in the Australian Army and had the honour of commanding soldiers at multiple levels. His operational service includes deployments to East Timor, Iraq, and southern Afghanistan, and he also served as a strategist on the United States Joint Staff in the Pentagon.
Mick has a bachelor’s degree in Asian Studies from the University of New England and is a graduate of the Australian Defence Force School of Languages. He is a Distinguished Graduate of the United States Marine Corps Command and Staff College, and a graduate of the USMC School of Advanced Warfighting. In 2012, he graduated with distinction from the Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies.
Mick has a long-standing interest in military history and strategy, advanced technologies, organizational innovation, and adaptation theory. He was inaugural President of the Defence Entrepreneurs Forum (Australia) and is a member of the Military Writers Guild. He is a keen author on the interface of military strategy, innovation, and advanced technologies, as well as how institutions can develop their intellectual edge. He has contributed to several books, including Strategy Strikes Back (2018), Why We Write (2019), On Strategy (2020) and To Boldly Go (2021). Mick has also authored major reports that include the Ryan Review (2016) and Thinking About Strategic Thinking (2021).
On 27 February 2022, Mick retired from the Australian Army. In the same month, his book War Transformed was published by USNI Books. He is a strategy consultant, a columnist for the Sydney Morning Herald and ABC Australia, and an adjunct fellow at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington DC.
His next book, White Sun War, will be published in 2023. It is a fictional account of a war over Taiwan.
Middle East security issues; Political Islam; Shi’a Islam
China; Chinese foreign and domestic policy; Chinese development policy
Operations staff
Sarah Hipsley is Chief Operating Officer at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
Shane McLeod is the Lowy Institute's Director of Media and Communications.
Carmel Phillips is the Director of Finance and Accounting at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.
