Jennifer Parker
Jennifer Parker is one of Australia’s leading voices on maritime security and defence strategy, drawing on more than 20 years’ service as a warfare officer in the Royal Australian Navy. She is an Adjunct Fellow in Naval Studies at UNSW Canberra and an Expert Associate at the National Security College at the Australian National University, alongside concurrent appointments as a Nonresident Fellow at the Lowy Institute, the Nancy Bentley Associate Fellow in Indo-Pacific Maritime Affairs at the London-based Council on Geostrategy, and Adjunct Professor of Practice at the University of Western Australia Defence and Security Institute.
During her naval career, Jennifer specialised as a Principal Warfare Officer, including deep specialist training with the Royal Navy in anti-submarine warfare, and served as second-in-command of the guided missile frigate HMAS Darwin. Her operational experience spans from the Middle East to the Caribbean, and her final appointment in the Royal Australian Navy was as Director of Operations in Bahrain for the Combined Maritime Forces, a multinational coalition promoting maritime security across the Middle East and Indian Ocean region. She went on to serve as Deputy Director of Defence at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute.
Since leaving full-time service, she has founded Barrier Strategic Advisory, providing counsel to government and industry on deterrence, capability development and geopolitical risk. She created, hosted and produced the Australian Naval Institute’s Saltwater Strategists podcast (2022–2024) and now co-hosts and co-produces the weekly Maritime Matters podcast. Jennifer is a prolific commentator on defence and national security, featured regularly across Australian and international print, digital, radio and television outlets including the ABC, BBC, CNN, Al Jazeera, Sky News Australia, The Wall Street Journal and The New York Times, and she writes regularly for The Conversation and other national publications.
She was educated at the Australian Defence Force Academy, and holds a Bachelor of Arts in politics and mathematics from UNSW, a Bachelor of Laws from the University of New England, a Master of Arts in Strategy and Security from UNSW, and a Master of Laws from ANU. She is admitted to the ACT Supreme Court as a legal practitioner, and is currently undertaking a PhD at the University of Wollongong on the history of Australia’s naval strategy.
Listen to hear Dominic Bowen in conversation with Jennifer Parker on the rapidly changing security environment across the Indo-Pacific and explains why maritime competition, strategic deterrence, and AUKUS matter far beyond defence circles.
