Welcome to Professor Katrina Lee-Koo, the new Head of School for Political Science and International Studies, replacing Professor Kath Gelber who has moved into the Associate Dean (Academic) role for the Faculty of Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences.
Professor Lee-Koo joins UQ from Monash University in Melbourne, where she was a Professor of Politics and International Relations, former Head of the Politics and International Relations program, and Director of the Monash Gender, Peace and Security Research Centre.
She is also a UQ alum, having completed her Bachelor of Arts (Honours) in the mid-1990s, majoring in History and Government, before moving on to her Master degree at the University of Nottingham, and PhD at the Australian National University.
Professor Lee-Koo teaches and researches in the fields of inclusive peace and security, feminist international relations, and women and leadership.
She has won numerous teaching and leadership awards including the Monash Dean of Arts Award for Excellence in Postgraduate Teaching, the Monash Dean of Arts Commendation for Research Enterprise, the ANU Vice-Chancellor’s Award for Excellence in Teaching, the ANU's Gender Champion Award and the national Australian Teaching and Learning Council's Citation for Excellence in Teaching.
As well as being chief investigator of an Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Project ‘Gender after Conflict’ and an ARC Linkage Project ‘Towards Inclusive Peace: Monitoring the Gender Provisions in Peace Settlements’ with partner organisation the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT), Professor Lee-Koo has held research partnerships across Australian government departments and with international organisations and NGOs.
Currently the book review editor for the International feminist Journal of Politics, she is also on the editorial board for the Australian Journal of Political Science, the Australian Journal of Politics and History, the Australian Journal of International Affairs, International Studies Quarterly and Politics and Gender.
Also on the advisory board for the Royal Holloway Gender Institute, Professor Lee-Koo is a series editor for the Palgrave Studies in International Relations and in 2023 was a Visiting Professor at the University of Brawijaya, Indonesia.
Her most recent book publications are: Gender Politics: Navigating Political Leadership in Australia (co-edited with Zareh Ghazarian, 2021, New South Publishing), Young Women and Leadership, (co-edited with Lesley Pruitt, New York: Routledge, 2020), Children and Global Conflict (Cambridge University Press, 2015 with Kim Huynh and Bina D’Costa) and Ethics and Global Security (Routledge, 2014 with Anthony Burke and Matt McDonald).
She has also published in her areas of research in: Contemporary Security Policy, Journal of Global Security Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, International Political Science Review, International Studies Perspectives, Third World Quarterly, Feminist Review, the Australian Journal of Political Science and elsewhere.
