Thu Hien Phan is a researcher at the University of New South Wales completing a PhD in Politics and International Relations, with thesis submission in 2026. Her research examines how Southeast Asian state leaders navigate domestic political constraints while engaging with regional institutions, grounded in original fieldwork interviews with government officials and policy practitioners across Indonesia, Vietnam, the Philippines, and Cambodia. She has published on ASEAN governance, Vietnam’s foreign policy, and technology geopolitics with Palgrave Macmillan and The Pacific Review, and has a chapter currently under peer review with Cambridge Review of International Affairs on Vietnam’s engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative. She holds a bachelor in International Relations from Bath University in the UK and a Master in Global Politics from the London School of Economics and Political Sciences.