April Palmerlee was appointed CEO of the American Chamber of Commerce in Australia in 2017 after an international career in government, education, and the corporate sector. American-born, Palmerlee has lived in Sydney since 2003 and is a dual citizen. She is a member of Chief Executive Women and a graduate of the Australian Institute of Company Directors. She received a BS from Georgetown and a Master’s from Columbia. In Australia, she has worked for the University of Sydney’s US Studies Centre, the Lowy Institute for International Policy, the Centre for Independent Studies, and Potomac Partners. In the United States, she held the rank of Assistant Secretary at the Department of State with the remit for international women’s issues. Before that, she was a senior executive at the Council on Foreign Relations in New York. She has also worked for couturier Oscar de la Renta, financial publisher The Bank Credit Analyst, and not-for-profit The Spanish Institute. She is on the boards of CIS, The United Way Australia and Georgetown University Australian and New Zealand Centre. She also chairs a scholarship selection committee at the Fulbright Commission.

Dr John Kunkel is Senior Economics Adviser at the United States Studies Centre. He has worked as an economist, speech writer, policy analyst, adviser to government and industry executive. Dr Kunkel served as Chief of Staff to Prime Minister Scott Morrison from August 2018 to May 2022. From 2004 to 2007, he was speech writer to Prime Minister John Howard. Subsequent roles included Deputy CEO of the Minerals Council of Australia and Head of Government Relations, Australia for Rio Tinto. He was a Fulbright Scholar to the United States in the 1990s and has a PhD in economics from the Australian National University. He is the author of America’s Trade Policy Towards Japan: Demanding Results (Routledge, 2003).

Dr Weihuan Zhou is Associate Professor and Co-Director of the China International Business and Economic Law (CIBEL) Centre, Faculty of Law and Justice, UNSW Sydney.
His research explores the most current and controversial issues in the field of international economic law (IEL), particularly the nexus between international trade law and China. He is the (co)-author of Between Market Economy and State Capitalism: China’s State-Owned Enterprises and The World Trading System (CUP, 2022) and China’s Implementation of Rulings of the WTO (Hart, 2019) and co-editor of Rethinking, Repackaging and Rescuing World Trade Law in the Post-Pandemic Era (Hart, 2021), Non-Market Economies in the Global Trading System: The Special Case of China (Springer, 2018) and The China-Australia Free Trade Agreement: A 21st-Century Model  (Hart, 2018). His work has appeared in all top journals in the field and in some of the best journals in the broader field of international law (such as the American Journal of International Law and International & Comparative Law Quarterly). His work has been cited widely, including in reports of the European Parliament, the Parliament of Australia, Australia’s Productivity Commission, US Congressional Research Services and World Economic Forum and by leading scholars in the field. Dr Zhou has taken a number of senior professional and academic roles internationally, including a former Executive Council Member and currently co-Secretary of the Society of International Economic Law (SIEL), and editorial board member of the World Trade Review and the Journal of International Trade Law and Policy. Dr Zhou is a qualified lawyer in Australia and consults for governments and major companies on trade remedy cases and other cross-border trade and investment matters.