People

Professor Stephen Howes is Director of the Development Policy Centre. He has a PhD in economics from the London School of Economics. He served in various positions for a decade at the World Bank before becoming AusAID’s first Chief Economist in 2005. He is now Professor of Economics at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU.

Robyn Alders is a Senior Scientific Advisor with the Chatham House Centre on Global Health Security, Chair of the Kyeema Foundation and an Honorary Professor with the Development Policy Centre within the Australian National University. Robyn’s current research and development interests include domestic and global food and nutrition security/systems, One Health/Planetary Health, gender equity and Science Communication. In February 2017, Robyn was the recipient of the Inaugural Mitchell Global Humanitarian Award.

Robin Davies was appointed as an Honorary Professor of the Australian National University in April 2023 following more than five years as head of the Global Health Division and the Indo-Pacific Centre for Health Security in Australia’s Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. He was previously Associate Director of the Development Policy Centre from late 2012 to 2017. He held a range of senior policy and program management roles in the Australian Agency for International Development from 1993 to 2012, serving in Paris and Jakarta.

Dr Ryan Edwards is the Deputy Director of the Development Policy Centre. Ryan is an economist whose research interests lie at the intersection of development economics, international trade, and the environment, with a particular focus on labour mobility and economic development. Ryan completed a PhD in Economics at the ANU and subsequently held academic appointments at Stanford and Dartmouth. Before PhD study, he worked in government and global development sectors.

Dr Grant Walton is a Associate Professor at the Centre. He received his PhD from the University of Melbourne. His thesis compared anti-corruption actors and citizen perspectives on corruption in PNG. Over the past decade Grant has conducted research in PNG, Liberia and Afghanistan. In 2015 Grant was appointed Deputy Director of the Transnational Research Institute on Corruption, a Research Associate of the University of Birmingham’s Developmental Leadership Program, and an ANU University House Early Career Academic Fellow. Grant leads our research into the effectiveness of health and education spending in PNG, and also undertakes research into corruption.

Dr Toan Nguyen is a Lecturer as part of the ANU-UPNG Partnership. Prior to this position, he held academic appointments in the University of Queensland and Curtin University, and was a software engineer before that. He received a Ph.D. in economics from Curtin University in August 2020. His primary research interests are in labor economics (migration) and family economics.

Dr Terence Wood is a Fellow at the Development Policy Centre. Terence’s research focuses on the domestic political economy of aid in donor countries, public opinion about aid, NGOs, aid effectiveness in poorly-governed states, and Melanesian electoral politics. Prior to commencing PhD study Terence worked for the New Zealand Government Aid Program.

Dr Charlotte Bedford is a Research Fellow at the Development Policy Centre, working in the field of Pacific migration. Since 2007 Charlotte has been closely involved in the New Zealand Recognised Seasonal Employer (RSE) policy that formed the basis of her doctoral studies at the University of Adelaide. Charlotte continues to have a strong interest in the New Zealand and Australian seasonal work schemes as well as working on broader social, economic and demographic aspects of Pacific migration.

Dr Nematullah Bizhan is a Lecturer working in Port Moresby as part of our partnership with UPNG. He is also a Research Fellow at Oxford University. He has a PhD in Political Science and International Relations from the Australian National University and was previously a high-level participant in the post-2001 government of Afghanistan. His research focuses on international development, state building and legitimacy in conflict-affected and fragile societies, public policy and political economy.

Andrew Anton Mako is Associate Lecturer and Project Coordinator for the ANU-UPNG Partnership. He completed his Master of International and Development Economics at the ANU Crawford School of Public Policy in 2012 and since then has worked as a research officer at the Development Policy Centre, research fellow at the PNG National Research Institute on the PNG Promoting Effective Public Expenditure (PEPE) project, and economist at the Pacific Islands Forum Secretariat.

Dr Cameron Hill is a Senior Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre working on Aid and Development. Prior to joining the Centre, Cameron worked as a Policy and Advocacy Advisor with the Australian Council for International Development (ACFID), as a development consultant and as a Senior Researcher with the Australian Parliamentary Library. Cameron also served as an official with the former Australian Agency for International Development (AusAID) for over ten years. Cameron was awarded a PhD from the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland in 2003.

Alyssa Leng is a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, working on the Papua New Guinea economy. She is currently studying the Master of International and Development Economics at the Australian National University and previously worked as a Research Fellow and Economist at the Lowy Institute.

Huiyuan (Sharon) Liu is a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, working in the area of economic development. She recently finished the master program of International and Development Economics at the Australian National University and has been working as a research consultant at the Asia Foundation on China’s foreign policy.

Estelle Stambolie is a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre. She has a double Masters in Economics and Development Economics from Stellenbosch University (South Africa) and Goettingen University (Germany). Estelle has interests in political economy, economic history and global development.

Sadhana Sen is the Regional Communications Adviser for the Development Policy Centre. She is also a freelance journalist. She has worked in the Pacific with the development sector, and in academia and the media mainly around democratic governance and women’s empowerment issues. She holds Masters Degrees in Public Policy from Crawford School and in Diplomacy and International Relations from the University of the South Pacific.

Amita Monterola is the Research Communications Coordinator at the Development Policy Centre. She holds a Masters degree in East Asian Studies from ANU and Bachelor of Communications (Broadcast Journalism) degree from Charles Sturt University.

Chloe Sim is a Program Officer at the Development Policy Centre. She has a Bachelor of Arts (Anthropology) from the Australian National University. Chloe’s areas of interest are in international development and conflict resolution in a modern political climate. She also works with FemiliPNG Australia, where her research is focused on women and families experiencing violence in Papua New Guinea.

Aloha Jeon, a Project Officer at the Centre, provides essential administrative support. Despite her background in Chemistry and Medical Chemistry (Bachelor’s degree), she has interests in Pacific migration, international relations, and Asia’s economic development.

Dr Ian Anderson has more than 30 years of international development experience with AusAID, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank and as an independent economics consultant. In 2018 he completed a PhD on health priorities and funding in Asia and the Pacific at Crawford School of Public Policy. He is also a regular Devpolicy blogger.

Sandra Naranjo Bautista is a public policy expert, specialising in governance, policy design and implementation, and public financial management. She is the former acting vice president, minister of planning and development, and minister of tourism in Ecuador, and has worked as a consultant for the World Bank, DFAT, the Gates Foundation and other organisations in Indonesia, Papua New Guinea and Mexico. Sandra is also the founder and CEO of Better Govs, an initiative focused on improving policy implementation in developing countries.

Ashlee Betteridge was Centre Manager of the Development Policy Centre until April 2021. Previously she was a Research Officer and Program Manager, first joining the centre in 2011. During her time at the centre she led numerous initiatives, including the Australian Aid Tracker and the Australasian Aid Conference. She now works as a development and communications consultant, including with the Australian Humanitarian Partnership Support Unit.

Dr Tess Newton Cain is the principal of TNC Pacific Consulting and is a Visiting Fellow to the Development Policy Centre. She is a citizen of Vanuatu, where she lived for almost 20 years, and is now based in Brisbane. Tess is a specialist in Pacific regionalism and sub-regionalism, with a particular interest in the Melanesian Spearhead Group. She is a regular contributor to the Devpolicy blog. She was the co-ordinator of the Pacific Conversations series in which she discussed politics and policy with established and emerging leaders from the Pacific island region.

Robert Cannon was Associate Professor and Director of the Advisory Centre for University Education at the University of Adelaide for 24 years where his focus was on improving the quality of university teaching. He has undertaken numerous appointments and consultancies in university, technical, and basic education with AusAID/DFAT, the World Bank, ADB, USAID, UNICEF and universities. Most recently, he has worked with USAID’s Palestinian Faculty Development Program and is currently the Education Research Specialist with DFAT’s INOVASI program in Indonesia.

Satish Chand is Professor of Finance at the University of New South Wales and Adjunct Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU.

Dr Richard Curtain specialises in Pacific migration. As a public policy consultant, he has worked on labour mobility on assignments related to the APTC, and in Fiji, Papua New Guinea, Samoa, Solomon Islands, Timor-Leste and Tonga. He was the co-author with colleagues at Devpol of a paper for the World Bank on Pacific Labour Mobility. His PhD is from ANU on internal migration and urban unemployment in Papua New Guinea.

Dr Martin Davies is an Assistant Professor of Economics at Washington and Lee University. His research interests include international trade and development. He has a D.Phil. from Oxford University, and has taught at UPNG, St John’s College Oxford, and the Foreign Commonwealth Office (UK). He has held a post at the Australian Treasury, and is a visitor to the University of PNG under the ANU-UPNG partnership.

Dr Benjamin Day is an Associate Lecturer in the ANU Department of International Relations. His research seeks to understand how recent changes in the international system are affecting how traditional donors use foreign aid as an instrument of foreign policy. Ben is a frequent blog contributor on Australian aid policy and global development issues.

Dr Matthew Dornan worked at the Development Policy Centre from 2011-2019, serving as Deputy Director from 2016-2019. He now works for the World Bank on Pacific labour mobility. He received his PhD from Crawford School of Public Policy at ANU, and has a background in public policy and economics. Matthew previously worked across the Pacific Islands as part of an Australian technical assistance program, and later worked on climate change adaptation for AusAID.

Ron Duncan is an Emeritus Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU. His research is currently focused on the binding constraints to growth and ‘clientelist’ politics in the Pacific.

John Eyers has worked in the Australian Treasury, ADB, Commonwealth Secretariat, Office of National Assessments, PNG Treasury, and the European Bank for Reconstruction and Development. His research interest is foreign assistance to fragile and transition states.

Taylor Ey was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre, working in the area of global development. He completed the Master of International and Development Economics at the Australian National University in 2021. Taylor has developed an interest in development economics, intangible capital, and international trade. He is currently working at the Melbourne Institute of Applied Economics.

Dr Colin Filer is an Honorary Professor at Crawford School of Public Policy. His research interests include the social context, organisation and impact of policies, programs and projects in the mining, petroleum, forestry and conservation sectors.

Paul Flanagan has a longstanding interest in public policy issues in Australia, PNG and more broadly. His thirty-five-year public service career was evenly shared between Treasury/Finance and AusAID. He headed up Treasury’s International Finance and Development Division from 2008-2011 before being seconded to a senior advisor position in the PNG Treasury until August 2013. He is a leading commentator on economic developments in PNG.

Rohan Fox was a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre until October 2021. He has a Masters in International & Development Economics from the ANU and worked on research on the development impact of roads infrastructure in Papua New Guinea in partnership with the National Research Institute and Development Policy Centre. His interests include behavioural economics and development impacts of infrastructure projects.

Dr Neelesh Gounder was the 2016/2017 recipient of the PNG and Pacific Greg Taylor scholarship. He co-organises the annual ANU-USP Pacific Update. He is currently Senior Lecturer in economics and Deputy Head of School (Research and International) at the University of the South Pacific, Suva. He has PhD in economics from Griffith University. Neelesh’s research areas include tourism, trade and growth in Pacific Island countries, poverty and economic performance of Pacific Island countries and the banking sector and financial development in Pacific Island countries.

Fiona Gunn is the Development Manager of Femili PNG, an NGO based in Lae and Port Moresby that runs a case management centres which assists survivors of family and sexual violence. Fiona has a Masters in International and Community Development from Deakin University, and has worked in international development, legal policy and cultural heritage roles at the National Archives of Australia, Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Australian Public Service Commission and the National Film and Sound Archive.

Dr Christopher Hoy was a Research and Policy Fellow at the Centre in 2020. He completed his Masters of International and Development Economics from Yale University and his PhD in Economics at the Australian National University. Christopher has published numerous academic articles and policy papers and has pioneered the use of randomized control trials in Papua New Guinea and the Pacific. He has worked as an economist for a range of organisations including the World Bank, Asian Development Bank, UNICEF, the Overseas Development Institute (ODI), Innovations for Poverty Action (IPA) and the Australian Government.

Dr Dinuk Jayasuriya worked as a Research Fellow at the Development Policy Centre in 2012 and 2013. He has undertaken research and evaluation work for the Asian Development Bank and the Australian government, and been Research Director for Red Elephant. He previously worked as the evaluation advisor to the Asian Development Bank’s impact evaluation committee and as a Monitoring and Evaluation Officer at the World Bank Group.

Paskal Kleden is a PhD student at the Crawford School of Public Policy, ANU undertaking research on aid to Indonesia under the supervision of Stephen Howes. He holds a Master of Science in Foreign Service from Georgetown University, where he studied as a Fulbright scholar. Prior to his PhD, Paskal worked as Research Coordinator in a DFAT-funded education program in Indonesia managed by the Palladium Group.

Maholopa (‘Maho’) Laveil has recently completed a Masters in International and Development Economics (IDEC) at the ANU after being awarded a scholarship under the ANU-UPNG partnership. He is now lecturing in Economics at the University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). He started his academic career as a Researcher Cadet at the PNG National Research Institute (NRI) in 2014, after graduating with a Bachelor in Economics from the University of Papua New Guinea in 2013.

Luke McKenzie was an Associate Lecturer working in Port Moresby as part of our partnership with University of Papua New Guinea (UPNG). Prior to this position, he worked as a Research Officer at the Development Policy Centre. Luke also worked at the Australian Treasury for four years, analysing and providing advice on tax policy. He has a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from The University of Queensland. Luke’s research interests include taxation and public finance, labour economics and randomised control trials.

Matthew Morris helped to establish the Development Policy Centre and served as the Centre’s first Deputy Director. Matt is a development economist with 20 years’ experience.

Joel Negin is Head of School and a Professor of International Public Health at the University of Sydney’s School of Public Health. His research focus is on health and development in sub-Saharan Africa and the Pacific and he is a contributor to the Devpolicy Blog on global health issues.

Sabit Otor is an Associate at the Development Policy Centre. He focuses his research on aid effectiveness, aid for trade, macroeconomic determinants of aid graduation, and developing countries. He holds a Bachelor Degree of Science and Education from Alexandria University (Egypt), a Bachelor Degree and Graduate Diploma of Economics from ANU, and a Master of International and Development Economics from ANU. In 2017, he co-authored a discussion paper with Matthew Dornan on the impact of aid on trade in Asia.

Dr Manoj Kumar Pandey was a Lecturer in Economics, working in Port Moresby as part of our partnership with UPNG until 2022. Prior to joining ANU, he worked as a Fellow in Official Statistics and coordinator of the Official Statistics Program at the School of Economics, Faculty of Business and Economics, University of the South Pacific (USP). Manoj has a strong background in statistics, applied econometrics and economics. His interests include ageing, development, health, labor, gender and well-being. He is currently working at the Australian Institute for Health and Welfare.

Dr Jonathan Pickering is an Assistant Professor in the School of Politics, Economics and Society at the University of Canberra, where he teaches international relations. His current research focuses on global environmental governance, with an emphasis on climate change and biodiversity. From 2015 to 2019 he was a Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Canberra, based at the Centre for Deliberative Democracy and Global Governance. He completed his PhD at ANU and is an associate of the Development Policy Centre. Previously he worked at AusAID (2003-09).

Professor Lekshmi N. Pillai is the Dean of the School of Business and Public Policy (SBPP) at the University of Papua New Guinea. He leads the partnership between Crawford School of Public Policy and the UPNG SBPP, and is a regular visitor to the Development Policy Centre and ANU.

Jonathan Pryke worked at the Development Policy Centre from 2011, and left in mid-2015 to join the Lowy Institute, where he is now Director of the Pacific Islands Program. He holds a Master of Public Policy/Master of Diplomacy from the Crawford School of Public Policy and the College of Diplomacy, ANU.

Dr Nayahamui Rooney was a Research Fellow at the Development Policy Centre, working for our partnership with the University of Papua New Guinea. She received her PhD from the Department of Pacific Affairs in the Coral Bell School of Asia Pacific Affairs, ANU, in 2017. Michelle also holds a Masters of Arts in Development Economics from University of Sussex, UK, and a Bachelor of Economics (Honours) from ANU.

Dr Michael Rose is a Research Associate of the Centre. He is an anthropologist with a PhD from the Australian National University and a background working various jobs in policy, agriculture, international development and education throughout Eurasia and Australia. His current focus is an ethnographic study exploring the experiences of a cohort of Timorese agricultural labourers within Australia’s Seasonal Worker Programme. His interests include the applied anthropology of development, labour mobility and diaspora communities, globalisation’s social impact and urban-rural movement in Southeast Asia.

Dek Sum worked at the Development Policy Centre from 2018-2022, serving as the associate lecturer/project coordinator for the ANU-UPNG partnership. He was also the lead researcher for the Independent Advisory Group which led the review of PNG’s Central Banking Act 2000. He has a Masters in International and Development Economics from the ANU. His research interests includes central banking, monetary economics and time-series econometrics. He is currently working as an ADB consultant, advising PNG Treasury on macroeconomic forecasting and public financial management matters.

Thomas Wangi is a Research Fellow at the National Research Institute. In 2014 he visited Devpolicy as the recipient of the Greg Taylor Scholarship. He holds a Masters of Economics from James Cook University, and is currently undertaking a PhD in economics at the ANU.

Bob Warner has worked at the Productivity Commission, the World Bank, the Centre for International Economics and the Crawford School of Public Policy (where he was Director Pacific Research Partnerships with for the Asia and the Pacific Policy Studies Journal). He has been a long term advisor in Bangladesh and Zimbabwe, and a short term advisor and consultant to governments in a number of developing countries, particularly in South East Asia and the Pacific.

Updated:  19 March 2024/Responsible Officer:  Devpolicy Admin/Page Contact:  CAP Web Team