Danielle is ASPI’s Director of Executive, Strategy and Research.

Danielle has worked in the fields of international security and global affairs – across government and non-government – since 2005 and has led diverse and large teams focused on a range of global issues impacting Australia’s place in the world. She has a particular interest in the Indo-Pacific region, emerging security challenges and the geopolitics of technology and cyberspace.

While at ASPI she has focused on building up the institute’s work on technology, cyber, China, and other national security issues. This included starting and funding a series of new teams at ASPI whose work has had significant global impact, resulting in new policies, new legislation and, for many governments, major increases in public spending into areas including science, critical technologies and research.

In 2020 she co-founded the Sydney Dialogue – the Indo-Pacific’s premier policy summit for critical and emerging technologies (with former ASPI senior Fergus Hanson), and continues to be heavily involved in the Sydney Dialogue. She has led and continues to work on major ASPI initiatives and data-driven online projects including, for example, the Critical Technology Tracker and the China Defence University Tracker.

In her current role at ASPI she leads a variety of teams and functions including the Executive Director’s office, contestability and research review, large strategic projects, communications, events and she oversees research output across the organisation. She has led projects and authored reports on critical technologies, cyber-enabled foreign interference and disinformation, hybrid threats, cyber-security, 5G, intelligence, AUKUS Pillar 2 and China technology issues. Previously she held a number of roles at ASPI both in senior leadership as the Deputy Director of ASPI’s International Cyber Policy Centre and as a senior analyst.

Prior to ASPI Danielle worked in the Australian Government for the then Office of National Assessments, AusAID and the Lowy Institute for International Policy. She was also a Google Fellow based at Harvard University’s think tank in Hong Kong the Digital Asia Hub and worked at the Yomiuri Shimbun covering Australia, NZ and the Pacific Islands.

Her research and analysis has been published and cited widely, including in the New York Times, Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Financial Times, Reuters, Associated Press, Nikkei Asia, Foreign Policy, Australian Foreign Affairs and across other global media outlets.

Besides her work for ASPI, she has also authored a number of external projects including an essay for Australian Foreign Affairs on how Covid-19, data, cyberspace & technology are changing spycraft; essays and articles for India’s largest think-tank and host of the Raisina Dialogue the Observer Research Foundation and a 3-year study for the Lowy Institute in 2019 ‘Foreign Territory: Women in international relations’ that revealed severe gender imbalances across Australia’s diplomatic, national security and intelligence community.

She has a Masters degree in International Security from Sydney University and a Bachelor degree in Business from the University of Technology, Sydney. She has previously lived in Taipei and Tokyo.