Joanne Wallis is a lecturer in the College of Asia and the Pacific at the Australian National University, Canberra. She has previously taught at the University of Cambridge, the University of Melbourne and Swinburne University of Technology, Victoria. She completed her PhD in politics and international studies at the University of Cambridge in 2011. From January 2009 to January 2012 she was an honorary Fellow of the School of Social and Political Sciences at the University of Melbourne. In 2006, she was a Fulbright Scholar at the Walker Institute of International and Area Studies at the University of South Carolina. She has also worked as a lawyer and has conducted research consultancies for Australian and international NGOs. Her research considers the role that constitution making plays in building states and nations in post-conflict societies, with a particular emphasis on the opportunities for engagement between liberal and local approaches to law, governance and development.