Dr Edward Morgan

Dr Edward (Ed) Morgan is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the United States Studies Centre. He has more than 15 years of experience in the defence and national security community in Australia and overseas, including as a senior officer in the Australian Defence Force (ADF), a public servant at federal and state levels and a leader in defence industry and consulting in Australia. He qualified as an academic before his national security career.

Ed has been a senior strategic adviser to the Royal Australian Air Force, helping develop Air Force’s fifth-generation Air Force strategy. He was strategic adviser to Australia’s first Head Information Warfare and led the development of the ADF’s first cyber concept, articulating cyberspace as a warfighting domain for the ADF. He subsequently worked in consulting for two leading Canberra firms, then as Strategy Manager for Northrop Grumman Australia. He returned to the ADF to be senior adviser to the Guided Weapons and Explosive Ordnance Group then to outgoing Head Force Design. He was Director Military Planning for the 2026 National Defence Strategy. As a Reserve Officer, Ed has worked as Air Domain Liaison Officer for Defence’s National Support Division and in Defence’s Military Strategic Commitments area in a strategic planning role.

As a public servant, Ed led scenario-planning for the ADF and enterprise planning for the Department of Defence. At State level, he managed defence industry for the Victorian Government and delivered its defence technology strategy to grow the Victorian defence sector.

Ed was educated at the University of Melbourne (BA (Hons.), 1st-Class) and as a Cambridge Commonwealth Scholar at the University of Cambridge (MPhil., PhD). Ed is fluent in English, French and German. He has published in international relations on information warfare and maritime disputes in the South China Sea. His previous academic publications include studies on language, theology and history including articles translated into Spanish and Japanese. Ed was a Military Fellow at the Centre for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) in Washington, DC in 2018-19 where he undertook extended research on trilateral interoperability between Australia, Japan and the United States. He subsequently became a CSIS Adjunct Fellow. He was Secretary of the Kokoda Foundation/Institute for Regional Security from 2012-2015 and is a Fellow at the Institute for Integrated Economic Research in Australia.

Ed is currently Principal at Morgan Advisory, a consulting company working across defence industry, national security and strategic sectors nationally and internationally.