Joanne Wallis

Professor Joanne Wallis

Professor

School of Social Sciences

Faculty of Arts, Business, Law and Economics

Eligible to supervise Masters and PhD - email supervisor to discuss availability.


Joanne Wallis is Professor of International Security in the Department of Politics and International Relations and Director of the 'Security in the Pacific Islands' research program in the Stretton Institute at the University of Adelaide. She is also a Nonresident Senior Fellow of the Brookings Institution.

Joanne is the author or editor of nine books, including Constitution making during State building (CUP 2014), Pacific Power? Australia’s Strategy in the Pacific Islands (MUP 2017), and Girt by Sea: Reimagining Australia's Security (with Bec Strating, forthcoming).

Joanne is the chief investigator of the Regional Perspectives Project with researchers based in Solomon Islands and Vanuatu. It is funded under a collaborative research agreement with the Defence Science and Technology Group.

She is also the chief investigator of a Defence Strategic Policy Grant analysing the potential of a networked security architecture in the Pacific Islands, and of another Defence Strategic Policy Grant analysing how tools of statecraft are used in the Pacific Islands region.

Finally, she is chief investigator of an Australian Research Council Discovery Project analysing the operation of the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands. 

She has previously conducted Australian Research Council Discovery Projects on the impact of political reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific and state-building in Melanesia.

Joanne is editor of the Australian Journal of International Affairs. She is on the editorial boards of Peacebuilding, and Global Studies Quarterly, and the international editorial board of The Round Table. She was previously on the editorial advisory committee of Asia Policy. Between 2019 and 2021 she was an Associate Editor of Peacebuilding.

Joanne is Research Program Director of the Security in the Pacific Islands program at the Stretton Institute for Public Policy. She is a member of the Advisory Group of AP4D (the Asia-Pacific Development, Diplomacy, and Defence Dialogue). She has been a visiting scholar at the Australian Civil Military Centre and regularly briefs government agencies, appears before parliamentary committees, and participates in international strategic dialogues. 

Joanne completed her PhD at the University of Cambridge as a Poynton Cambridge Australia scholar. Joanne then spent more than eight years in the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre at the Australian National University. She has also completed Masters degrees in Arts and Law at the University of Melbourne and prior to that was a lawyer at Allens Arthur Robinson (now Allens Linklaters). She is admitted as a barrister and solicitor in the Supreme Court of Victoria and High Court of Australia. 

Joanne has been a Fulbright Scholar at the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies at the University of South Carolina; a Visiting Scholar at the State, Society and Governance in Melanesia Project at the Australian National University; an Honorary Fellow of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne; and a Visiting Scholar the East-West Center in Honolulu.

Joanne has also taught on Australia’s strategic and foreign policy at the Australian War College, and in professional education programs for the Department of Defence, the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, and the Department of Home Affairs. She is a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy and was awarded the ANU Vice Chancellor's Award for Teaching Excellence, and has received a National Citation for Outstanding Contributions to Student Learning.

Personal website: https://www.joannewallis.com/

ABC International Development, 'State of the Media-Pacific' ($400,000; 2023-2024).

Defence, Science and Technology Group, ‘Regional Perspectives project’ ($2.95 million; 2022-2025).

ARC DP200101994, ‘Pacific Partners? The operation and endurance of the Australia-New Zealand alliance in the Pacific Islands’ ($204,879; 2020-2024) with Anna Powles (Massey University).

Defence Strategic Policy Grant, ‘State-craftiness: mapping competition, cooperation, and coercion in the Pacific Islands’ ($368,814; 2022-2024) with Henrietta McNeill, Alan Tidwell, and Gordon Peake (Georgetown University).

Defence Strategic Policy Grant, A networked security architecture in the Pacific: Implications for Australia’ ($255,610; 2020-2022) with Anna Powles (Massey University), James Batley (ANU), Alan Tidwell (Georgetown University), and Hidekazu Sakai (Kansai Gaidai University).

ARC DP160104692, ‘Doing state-building better? Practising hybridity in Melanesia’ ($156,345; 2016-21).

ARC DP140102388, ‘The impact of political reconciliation in the Asia-Pacific’ ($173,328; 2014-18), with Renee Jeffery (Griffith University) and Lia Kent (ANU).

  • Current Higher Degree by Research Supervision (University of Adelaide)

    Date Role Research Topic Program Degree Type Student Load Student Name
    2024 Co-Supervisor Regional Desecuritisation: A Constructivist Lens to Shaping the Strategic Environment in the South Pacific Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Douglas Andrew John Seedhouse
    2022 Principal Supervisor Exploring the rise and multidimensionality of strategic partnerships in the Asia-Pacific
    security architecture
    Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Jack Butcher
    2022 Principal Supervisor Reassessing China’s Identity: Interaction with Oceania over the Last Five Decades Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Miss Geyi Xie
    2022 Principal Supervisor Understanding Security & Justice Approaches in the Pacific: Homegrown perspectives Master of Philosophy Master Part Time Ms Maima Koro
    2022 Principal Supervisor Pacific Island Countries in International Relations: A case study of Fiji, Samoa and Tonga Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time William Burenbeiya Waqavakatoga
    2022 Principal Supervisor Reimaging Public Diplomacy in the Pacific Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Priestley Habru
    2021 Principal Supervisor All the way with the USA? The effect of the US-Australia alliance on Australian Foreign Policy Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Mr Benjamin Jason Cherry-Smith
    2021 Principal Supervisor International influence and domestic political agency in Solomon Islands Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Part Time Edward Acton-Cavanough
    2021 Principal Supervisor The dynamics Pacific regionalism: How power operates within the Pacific Islands Forum Doctor of Philosophy Doctorate Full Time Ms Solstice Middleby
  • Position: Professor
  • Phone: 83135809
  • Email: joanne.wallis@adelaide.edu.au
  • Campus: North Terrace
  • Building: Napier, floor 4
  • Org Unit: School of Social Sciences

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