Dr Adam Lockyer, Senior Lecturer in Security Studies from the Department of Policing, Intelligence and Counter Terrorism, and Annette Stewart, an alumna of the Macquarie Graduate School of Management (MGSM) have been awarded 2015 Fulbright Professional Scholarships, announced during the annual presentation dinner in Perth last week.

The Fulbright Program is the largest and one of the most prestigious educational scholarship programs in the world. It operates between the United States and over 155 countries worldwide, and has supported almost 4,800 scholars between Australia and the U.S to date.

Adam will pursue his research on the future of the alliance between Australia and the United States in the Indo-Pacific Arc. His research examines the compatibility of U.S. and Australian strategies in the region within the context of their own diplomatic histories. Lockyer hopes his research will inform both an article and chapter in his larger project on Australian defence strategy.

“It has almost become a cliché to say that the United States and Australia now share a greater strategic overlap of interests than that at anytime since 1945,” said Adam, “however, this does not mean that we should always work together in their pursuit.

“Australia and the United States have their own unique diplomatic histories with many of the countries that constitute the Indo-Pacific Arc, including Indonesia, Singapore and Malaysia. The task in the coming decades will be identifying when the allies should work jointly, when they should work separately and when only one of them should pursue the aim.”

Annette, a graduate of the Master of Business Administration, MGSM, will work closely with the Conservation Measures Partnership (CMP), an active consortium of leading conservation organisations, agencies and funders in the U.S.

The CMP brings together its members to share experiences and conduct research to improve the practice of conservation. Annett’s Fulbright project aims to develop a series of case studies, so she can develop new insights to empower conservation organisations around the world to achieve better protection for the world’s wildlife and landscapes.