Dr Elise Stephenson is an award-winning researcher and the deputy director of the Global Institute for Women’s Leadership at Australian National University, chaired by Australia’s first (and only) female prime minister, Julia Gillard. Stephenson is also the Gender, Space and National Security Fellow at the ANU’s National Security College, an adjunct at Griffith Asia Institute and a Fulbright Fellow of the University of Washington. She is the author of the UN Office for Outer Space Affair’s Landmark Study on Gender Equality in the Global Space Sector (2024), containing world-first data on gender representation and policy uptake in over 50 space agencies globally – including NASA and the Australian Space Agency – and her book The Face of the Nation (2024) won the International Studies Association Bertha Lutz Prize and the Australian Political Science Association Crisp Prize for best scholarly book on political science. Her research appears widely, including in the Hague Journal of Diplomacy, Australian Journal of International Affairs and European Journal of Politics and Gender. Recognised by Deloitte and Google as one of Australia’s Top 50 Outstanding LGBTIQ+ leaders, Elise was funded by Monash University for her research on diversity in space.