Dr. Emma Shortis is Senior Researcher in the International & Security Affairs Program at The Australia Institute, an independent think tank. Shortis is historian and writer, focused on the history and politics of the United States and its role in the world. She uses her expertise in history to interpret and explain what is happening in the world today, and what it means for Australia, in a compassionate and accessible way. In a conversation often dominated by the same voices, Shortis offers a fresh perspective on international relations grounded in moral questions about how we might imagine a post-American future.

Shortis’s first book, "Our Exceptional Friend: Australia’s Fatal Alliance with the United States," was published by Hardie Grant in 2021. She writes regularly for Australian and international outlets, and appears regularly on Australian radio and television.

Before joining the Australia Institute, Shortis was a Lecturer at RMIT University, where her academic work focused on international relations and climate transition. Before that, she spent a year in the United States as Fox-Zucker International Fellow at Yale University, where she finished her Ph.D. in History.