Ashley Townshend is Director, Foreign Policy and Defence at the United States Studies Centre. He works on US-Asia relations, alliance politics, and international security. He also lectures at the University of Sydney and previously worked at the Lowy Institute for International Policy.

Richard Fontaine was the Alliance 21 Program Fellow at the US Studies Centre from July to August 2016. Fontaine is the President of the Centre for a New American Security. Previously, Fontaine was a foreign policy advisor to Senator John McCain for more than five years and has also worked at the State Department, the National Security Council and on the staff of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.