Natalie Sambhi

Through her research, presentations and publications, Natalie Sambhi is committed to helping people gain a more nuanced understanding of Indonesian civil-military relations, Indonesian defence policy and Southeast Asian security.

Natalie is founder and executive director of Verve Research, an independent think tank focused on the relationship between militaries and societies in Southeast Asia. She is also a senior policy fellow at Asia Society Australia; a lecturer at the Australian War College (Deakin University), convening modules for the Defence and Strategic Studies Course and Australian Command and Staff Course; and a nonresident fellow with the Brookings Institution’s Foreign Policy program.

Natalie has a doctorate from the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre, the Australian National University on the Indonesian military’s collective memory of its experiences in East Timor (1975–1999). She holds a Bachelor of Arts (Asian studies with hons.) from the University of Western Australia, with majors in Japanese and French, and a Master of Arts (international relations) and Master of Diplomacy from the Australian National University.

Natalie has previously been a research fellow at the Perth USAsia Centre, and an analyst and managing editor of ASPI’s blog, The Strategist, at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI). She has also worked at the Department of Defence and University of Canberra. In May 2014 and in January 2016, Natalie was a visiting fellow at the Center for a New American Security in Washington, D.C. where she researched Indonesian civil–military relations.

Natalie has been a guest lecturer and presenter at the Australian National University, Australian National Security College, Australian War College, Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade, Indonesian National Resilience Institute, Indonesian Defense University, Indonesian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Canadian Department of National Defence, and several international think tanks and universities. Her writing has appeared in Security Challenges journal, South China Morning Post, War On The Rocks, The Diplomat, The Interpreter, and The National Interest.

Natalie has previously been involved with the Australian Institute of International Affairs ACT; the U.S.-based Center for International Maritime Security and was a founding member of ASPI’s Women in Defence and Security Network. She speaks Indonesian, French and Japanese.

Affiliations:

• Network for Strategic Analysis, collaborator
• Young Australians in International Affairs, board member