Cesar Alvarez Velasquez

Before joining Charles Sturt University, Cesar Alvarez worked for The Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), a Canberra-based National Security and Defence think-tank, where he spent two years researching Australian and Latin American organised crime links, as well as Colombian politics, and drug trafficking.

In Colombia, Cesar provided technical advice to the Terrorism Prevention Branch of The United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC), and also served as a consultant and advisor to the Counter-Narcotics Directorate and the Doctrine and Planning Office of The National Police of Colombia.

Cesar holds a Master of Policing, Intelligence, and Counter-Terrorism with the degree of Master of International Security Studies from Macquarie University. He also holds a Bachelor's Degree in Government and International Relations from Externado University in Colombia.

Cesar is also the Co-Founder and Director of The Australia-Colombia Dialogue, a public-diplomacy and non-governmental organisation dedicated to advance and promote Australia-Colombia relations. He is a frequent commentator for SBS Radio in Spanish, and his articles and interviews have been featured in The Australian, The Financial Review, The Canberra Times, The Outlook, The Strategist, El Tiempo, Portafolio, The ABC’s the World and the Drum, A Current Affair, 60 Minutes, Today Show, and CNN in Spanish.

Cesar has lectured at the Police Academy in Colombia, the Military University Nueva Granada, and Javeriana University in Colombia. His main research interests include terrorist financing, transnational organised crime, in particular drug trafficking, as well as Colombian politics and Australian-Latin American relations.

Since March 2017, Cesar is a Lecturer at the Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security (AGSPS) where he teaches Terrorism Financing and Resourcing, Transnational Organised Crime, Terrorists Communications and Propaganda, and Illicit Network Analysis. You can follow him at @cesaralvarez_au on twitter and Instagram.