A/Prof. Pichamon Yeophantong

Dr Pichamon Yeophantong is Associate Professor and Head of Research at the Centre for Future Defence and National Security, Deakin University at the Australian War College. She also leads the Responsible Business Lab and the Environmental Justice and Human Rights Project, which are funded by an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellowship. Pichamon has previously held academic positions at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Princeton University, and the University of Oxford. 

As a political scientist and China specialist, Pichamon conducts research into Chinese foreign policy and, specifically, the social and environmental impacts of Chinese overseas investment in the developing world. She also teaches and conducts field-based research on business and human rights, and more broadly, on the political economy of sustainable development in the Asia-Pacific.

Pichamon sits on the Board and Research Committee of Jubilee Australia Research Centre as well as on the Advisory Committee of the Australian Water Partnership. She is also a Senior Research Fellow (non-resident) at the Wong MNC Center. Since May 2022, Pichamon has served as the Member from Asia-Pacific States on the United Nations Working Group on Business and Human Rights.

In addition to these roles, Pichamon has worked as a consultant on human rights and security issues to a range of local and international NGOs as well as government agencies. She has delivered over 300 invited talks and public lectures on these issues since 2010, including at an ASEAN Regional Forum Workshop and the Australian Institute of International Affairs’ National Conference. Pichamon is currently working with civil society and other local partners on a series of funded initiatives that seek to support the resilience of women leaders and environmental human rights defenders in the Asia-Pacific.

In recognition of the social impact of her work, Pichamon was awarded the 2018 Australia ‘Future Leader’ Prize by the Council for the Humanities, Arts and Social Sciences, and was named a ‘human rights fighter’ by the 2020 Advance Awards. In addition to native fluency in Thai, Pichamon has working proficiency and holds advanced language certificates in French, Japanese, Lao, Mandarin Chinese, and Spanish, among a few others.