Dr Anna Powles Associate Professor in Security Studies, Massey University Dr Anna Powles is a Senior Lecturer at the Centre for Defence and Security Studies. Her research focusses on the geopolitics, security and conflict in the Pacific Islands region and New Zealand foreign and defence policy in the Pacific. 

Anna is an Expert Associate at the ANU’s National Security College, a Non-Resident Fellow at the National Bureau for Asian Research, and an Associate Scholar, MacMillan Brown Center for Pacific Studies at the University of Canterbury. 

Anna sits on the advisory group to the International Code of Conduct Association (the governance and oversight mechanism of the International Code of Conduct for Private Security Service Providers). She has previously been engaged by the United Nations Development Programme Pacific as a subject matter expert on private security sector governance in the Pacific and as a security sector reform specialist in Timor-Leste. Anna has also served on the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs Standing Committee, as the New Zealand representative on the NATO Core Group on Women, Peace and Security (2016-18), as a member of the Pacific Advisory Group (an independent advisory body to the New Zealand Government), and in 2014 founded the New Zealand chapter of Women In International Security. 

Anna has worked extensively in conflict and humanitarian emergencies in Southeast Asia and the Pacific and has previously held positions with the International Crisis Group, the United Nations Development Programme, the Australian Civil-Military Centre, as well as with international humanitarian agencies including Oxfam, Action Aid, World Vision and the Norwegian Refugee Council. 

Anna holds a PhD from the Australian National University and is an alumni of the East West Center and the Asia Pacific Center for Security Studies, Honolulu.