Advance Awards Emerging Leader Category Finalist
Dr Pichamon Yeophantong is Senior Lecturer in International Relations and Development and the Director of the Responsible Business Lab at the University of New South Wales (Canberra)—Australian Defence Force Academy. In her work, Pichamon tackles big, real-world problems and focuses on finding solutions. Through her Lab, she works with activists, policymakers and businesses to engender better governance and development outcomes in the Asia-Pacific region through evidence-based research. Pichamon embodies the leadership, energy and agility needed to bring about positive change. In light of the COVID-19 pandemic, she has received grants to work with researchers from across the region to address pressing COVID19-related problems. One project, for example, sees her leading a team of interdisciplinary researchers in Indonesia to study COVID-19’s impacts on Indonesia’s construction industry and develop guidelines for the Indonesian Ministry of Public Works and Housing on how to best assist affected construction workers and companies.
Dr Pichamon Yeophantong is a recipient of the prestigious Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship for her research on regulating the social and environmental impacts of Chinese investment in the developing world. As part of this project, she runs capacity development and training workshops for Chinese and Southeast Asian academics and practitioners on topics relating to business and human rights. Pichamon has also been a consultant to a range of international organisations and civil society groups on social and environmental justice issues, including the Africa Progress Panel, Overseas Development Institute and International Rivers, and is a Chief Investigator on a CARE Australia-funded project on preventing sexual harassment in garment factories in Southeast Asia. Dr Pichamon Yeophantong has received international fellowships and awards in recognition of her work and public engagement. These include a Global Leaders Fellowship from Princeton University and the University of Oxford, an ASEAN-Canada Senior Fellowship from Nanyang Technological University, and an inaugural Taiwan Fellowship. In 2018, she received Australia ‘Future Leader’ Prize from the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences. As an educator, Pichamon is deeply committed to supporting the next generation of scholar-practitioners. In addition to supervising and mentoring her students in Australia, she maintains a global mentoring network for budding young scholars, particularly those located in the global South, and has also taught short-term courses on development and human rights at leading universities in China.
