Professor Stephan Frühling teaches and researches at the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre of The Australian National University and has widely published on Australian defence policy, defence planning and strategy, nuclear weapons and NATO.

Stephan was the Fulbright Professional Fellow in Australia-US Alliance Studies at Georgetown University in Washington DC in 2017. He worked as a ‘Partner across the globe’ research fellow in the Research Division of the NATO Defense College in Rome in 2015 and was a member of the Australian Government’s External Panel of Experts on the development of the 2016 Defence White Paper.

Previously, he was the Interim Head of the Strategic and Defence Studies Centre (2022 and 2025), Associate Dean Partnership and Engagement (2021-2022), Deputy Dean (2020 to 2021), and Associate Dean Education (2016 to 2020) in the ANU College of Asia and the Pacific, the inaugural Director of Studies of the ANU Master in Military Studies program at the Australian Defence Force’s Australian Command and Staff College (2011 to 2013), and Managing Editor of the Kokoda Foundation’s journal Security Challenges (2006 to 2014).

Australian defence policy, nuclear weapons, alliances, NATO, defence planning.