About Vafa
Vafa is a political philosopher and public policy strategist. He is currently the Executive Director for Research and Policy at the James Martin Institute for Public Policy. He previously worked in the policy planning branch of the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade in Canberra, among other roles, and served as a diplomat in Afghanistan and to the United Nations in Vienna. Vafa also worked as an adviser in the Department of the Prime Minister and Cabinet. He was a visiting researcher on ethics with the AI lab, DeepMind. He is an Asia 21 Young Leader with the Asia Society. Vafa is a graduate of the University of Sydney, where he won the university medal, and Harvard University, where he completed a master’s in public administration as a Fulbright Scholar. He completed a doctorate at the University of Oxford, where he studied as a John Monash Scholar, and also taught political theory as a lecturer in politics.
