The Pacific Islands is an increasingly crowded and complex region; it faces multifaceted security challenges and a range of external powers are seeking to influence it. This presentation, by Dr. Joanne Wallis, will focus on the increased presence of China in the Pacific Islands, and consider the challenges this poses to the region, and to Australia, New Zealand, the United States and France, which have traditionally been the most important external powers.

Embassy-based congressional outreach delivers results for diplomatic missions in Washington - it is the often unheralded side of diplomatic work. Dr. Alan Tidwell's presentation, drawing on examples from the embassies of Australia, New Zealand, Canada, the UK, and Israel, examines the different ways in which embassies engage in congressional outreach.

Two scholarships will be available for Australians, two for Americans, and will include funding for 3-4 months research. As a result of the scholarship, recipients will produce a tangible contribution to contemporary debate in his or her area of speciality in the format of a report, which can be used, and published with an appropriate accreditation.

Jennifer Curtin, Professor of Politics and Director of the Public Policy Institute at the University of Auckland, New Zealand, and NZ-Fulbright Senior Research Scholar at Georgetown in 2012, comes to speak on the multitude of ways Jacinda Ardern has challenged traditional and gendered sensibilities as to what constitutes prime-ministerial leadership in New Zealand.

Dr. Claire Higgins, an historian and Senior Research Associate at the Kaldor Centre for International Refugee Law at UNSW Sydney, comes to Georgetown to discuss Australia's Asylum Policy. Dr. Higgins is a Fulbright Postdoctoral Scholar at Georgetown’s Institute for the Study of International Migration, and the author of ‘Asylum by Boat: origins of Australia’s refugee policy’ (NewSouth, 2017).