She teaches political science and international relations at the University of Canterbury. Her research focuses on the Chinese Communist Party's (CCP) domestic and foreign policy, as well as polar politics, Pacific politics, small states, and New Zealand foreign policy. Professor Brady is the author of 15 books and more than 60 academic papers, including China as a Polar Great Power, Marketing Dictatorship: Propaganda and Thought Work in Contemporary China, and Making the Foreign Serve China: Managing Foreigners in the People’s Republic. She has played a leading role in the global conversation on CCP political interference activities as a tool of foreign policy, so much so that her research is reported to have been an influence on the US government’s Indo-Pacific strategy. Professor Brady is an advisor to the Inter-Parliamentary Alliance on China, and a frequent contributor to the international media. In 2020 she was made a Fellow of the Royal Society of New Zealand.

Professor Brady obtained her M.A. in Asian Studies: Chinese and Political Studies from the University of Auckland, and her Ph.D. in East Asian Studies: International Relations from the Australian National University. She has taught graduate courses at Beijing University, Central University of Nationalities, Wuhan University, and Qinghua University. Professor Brady has provided expert testimony to the governments of Australia, Canada, Denmark, New Zealand, United Kingdom, and the U.S. She has published opinion pieces with The Washington Post, The Australian, Sydney Morning Herald, The Guardian, The New York Times among others. You can follow her on Twitter @Anne_MarieBrady.