Dr Anna Powles is a Senior Lecturer in Security Studies with the Centre for Defence and Security Studies and a member of the Pacific Research and Policy Centre at Massey University, New Zealand. She is the Director of Women in International Security New Zealand and a member of the NATO Civil Society Advisory Panel on Women, Peace and Security Core Group and the Civil Society Representative on the New Zealand Women, Peace and Security Civil Society Parallel Caucus. Dr Powles also supports the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat and United Nations Development Programme on private security governance matters. She specialises in regional security in the Pacific, New Zealand foreign policy and security relations with the Pacific, private security, peacekeeping, and women, peace and security. Recent publications include United Nations Peacekeeping Challenge: The Importance of the Integrated Approach co-edited with Negar Partow and Nick Nelson, an edited volume mapping private security in the Pacific with Bethan Greener, and ‘Finding Common Ground: New Zealand and Regional Security Cooperation in the Pacific’ in Regionalism, Security and Cooperation in Oceania. She holds a PhD from the Australian National University’s Strategic and Defence Studies Centre.