PROJECT DIRECTOR

Elizabeth is Professor of International Political Economy, Director of Research, and Deputy Head of School in the School of Social Sciences, Faculty of Arts, Design and Architecture (ADA) at UNSW Sydney. She is also an invited member of the World Economic Forum's Global Future Council on Equitable Transition (2025-2026), and an elected member of the Executive Council of the Society for the Advancement of Socio-economics (SASE) (2022-2025).

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Deborah Barros Leal Farias is an Associate Professor at UNSW's School of Social Sciences, where she teaches and researches Politics and International Relations. Her research focuses on international organisations, international political economy, and populism, especially in the context of environmental governance and climate change. Before UNSW, she was a policy researcher with the IEA's Task 43 (Bioenergy). She is especially interested in Brazil's environmental politics on renewables. 

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Christian Downie is a Professor in the School of Regulation and Global Governance at the Australian National University, where he is the Director of the Governing Energy Transition (GET) Lab.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Adam Fish is an Associate Professor in the School of Arts and the Media, at the University of New South Wales. He is a cultural anthropologist, documentary video producer, and interdisciplinary scholar who works across social science, computer engineering, environmental science, and the visual arts.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Alexander M. Hynd is a Lecturer at the University of Melbourne's Asia Institute, where he teaches and researches Korean politics and international relations. He is currently researching the statecraft behaviours of secondary states in the Indo-Pacific region

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Wesley Morgan is a research associate with the Institute for Climate Risk & Response at UNSW. He is a Fellow with the Climate Council of Australia. Wes’ research considers the ways countries work together at the UN to tackle climate change and integrate climate change into their foreign policy and national security strategies. Wes has written widely on climate change and international relations. He is co-editor of Climate Politics in Oceania: Australia-Pacific relations in a warming world.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Professor Norman is a leading Australian researcher in the field of Aboriginal political history. Her research sits in the field of history and draws on the cognate disciplines anthropology, political-economy, cultural studies and political theory. She has made significant contributions to understandings Aboriginal social, cultural, economic and political history where she addresses questions of power in relation to Aboriginal citizens, the state and settler society and Aboriginal land justice. At the heart of her research, is her support for Aboriginal peoples’ rightful place in the nation, especially within political institutions, in society and the economy as landholders.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Susan Park is Professor of Global Governance at the University of Sydney. She focuses on how international organisations and global governance can become greener and more accountable, particularly in the transition to renewable energy. Her latest book is The Good Hegemon (OUP 2022).

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Leonard Seabrooke is Professor of International Political Economy in the Department of Organization at the Copenhagen Business School. His research focuses on how the public and private sectors interact to craft economic and environmental policies.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Hao Tan is a Professor in Management and Associate Dean at Nottingham Business School China, within the University of Nottingham Ningbo, China. He is also a co-Chief Investigator on the Green Energy Statecraft Project. His research focuses on energy transitions, particularly within the context of China, and their global implications from management and policy research perspectives.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Andrew Walter is Professor of International Relations at the University of Melbourne. His current research includes the politics of wealth, investment and national security, and finance in the energy transition.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Professor Weihuan Zhou is a recognized expert in the field of international economic law, and co-Director of the China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre at the Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney. His research explores the most current and controversial issues in the field of international economic law, particularly the nexus between international trade law and China. He has published in all top journals in this field. His work has been cited widely, including in reports of the European Parliament, the Parliament of Australia, Australia’s Productivity Commission, US Congressional Research Services and World Economic Forum. He is a regular contributor to public discussions on all range of issues relating to international economic law and China through opinion articles and interviews with leading institutions and media outlets. Professor Zhou sits on the Council of Future Trade and Investment at the World Economic Forum, the Executive Council of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), and editorial boards of the World Trade Review, the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy and the Journal of WTO and China.

CHIEF INVESTIGATOR

Fengshi Wu is an Associate Professor in Politics and International Relations at the School of Social Sciences, University of New South Wales. She has over 25 years of research experience in environmental politics, state-society relations, and global governance, with the empirical focus on the Asia Pacific region (esp. East Asia, Southeast Asia, and Central Asia). Her recent research focuses on the global transformation of the energy system, rapidly accelerated by geopolitics, and the impacts on civil society. 

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Chris Khatouki is a recent PhD Graduate from UNSW Sydney, his research focuses on economic governance and state-society relations in South Korea and the Indo-Pacific.

Chris was appointed a Rising Expert on US-ROK-Australia security at the Atlantic Council Scowcroft Centre for Strategy and Security. He held a Graduate Fellowship with The Korea Foundation between 2021 and 2024 and was selected as an Emerging Policy Specialist by the National Committee on American Foreign Policy.

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Temirlan Zhumadilov is a PhD graduate researcher at the University of Melbourne, specializing in the comparative study of political regimes and the impact of digital repression on political protests. His work emphasizes the innovative application of quantitative research methods, including social media text analysis and experimental survey design. His broader research agenda explores authoritarianism and pathways to democratization, the transition to greener economies, and the cultivation of social capital in weak and transitional states.

RESEARCH ASSOCIATE

Emma is a Research Associate at UNSW with research interests in how governments can design policy instruments that shape sectoral pathways for green transformation, enabling effective and inclusive decarbonisation. She holds a Master’s in Environmental Management from UNSW, where her thesis on Green Energy Statecraft examined the risks and opportunities of framing the energy transition through a security lens. Alongside her academic research, she is a Senior Policy Analyst in the Tasmanian Government's Future Industries team, with a decade of prior international experience across the private and for-purpose sectors in New Zealand, Singapore, and the UK.

Digital Content Manager

Chris Hall is researching youtuber journalism at the Faculty of Law, University of Technology Sydney. Chris has over 10 years experience managing websites and social media for professionals, small businesses, and community organisations.