Bio brief

I served the UN, the OSCE, and compatible governments for almost three decades of work focused on multi-faceted peacekeeping, political, and humanitarian crises in some of the world’s most fragile and conflicted zones. I was boots-on-the-ground in Africa, India, Af/Pak and former Soviet Central Asia, the Western Balkans, Eastern Europe, the Caribbean, the Caucasus, South-East Asia, and the Middle East, including first response operations.

Since May 2023 I lead the the Planet Humana Fund, a new private philanthropic organisation based out of Providence, Rhode Island, and Sydney. Planet Humana provides grants to individuals and organisations doing high-impact and innovative frontline work across a range of human rights, development, humanitarian, and media projects throughout the globe. We currently work in Kenya, Argentina, and East Timor, with the bulk of our work in Ukraine.

I've been published in the New York Times, Foreign Policy, the Washington Post, The Australian, the Sydney Morning Herald, Salon, and various institutes, and have been interviewed by numerous Australian, U.S., European, and Asian news outlets, including the BBC, CNN, Sky News, and NPR. Formerly, I was a Visiting Scholar at the University of Sydney's Centre for Peace and Conflict Studies in the Department of Political Science, and an Adjunct Professor at Griffith University's Department of Government.

Personal

I'm the father of a beautiful daughter, and the son of an immigrant who became an early female judge in Australia, and a Czech refugee whose 57-member family was killed during the Holocaust. My primary home is Australia, to which the highland Scots part of my family immigrated in the 1820s as early pioneers in Tasmania and the Mildurra district on the Murray River.