Rate My Professor Shannon Ford

Dr. Shannon Ford is a Senior Lecturer in International Relations in the School of Media, Creative Arts and Social Inquiry within the Faculty of Humanities at Curtin University in Perth, Australia. He serves as Major Lead for the International Relations postgraduate program and Coordinator of the International Relations Major. Ford earned his PhD from the National Security College at the Australian National University. His career includes ten years with the Australian Department of Defence, where he worked as a senior intelligence analyst in the Defence Intelligence Organisation specializing in North Asian security issues and as a strategist in the Strategic Policy Division coordinating planning with the U.S. Department of Defence. Subsequently, he was a Research Fellow at the Centre for Applied Philosophy and Public Ethics at Charles Sturt University, leading research on cybersecurity ethics, and a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales Canberra, focusing on the political, ethical, and legal dilemmas of emerging weapon technologies. Ford has taught undergraduate and postgraduate courses in international relations, national security, and intelligence analysis at Curtin University, the Australian National University, Charles Sturt University, and the University of New South Wales Canberra, and has developed professional development programs for government agencies on international security, intelligence, and policy-making.

Ford's research focuses on military ethics, the just war tradition, ethics of intelligence and cybersecurity, and moral constraints on the use of force in warfare and policing. His publications appear in journals such as the Journal of Military Ethics, Journal of Cyber Policy, Criminal Justice Ethics, and Ethics & International Affairs. Notable works include 'Jus Ad Vim and the Just Use of Lethal Force-Short-of-War' (2013, Routledge Handbook of Ethics and War), 'Cybersecurity, trustworthiness and resilient systems: guiding values for policy' (2017, Journal of Cyber Policy), 'Restraining police use of lethal force and the moral problem of militarization' (2022, Criminal Justice Ethics), 'Moral Exceptionalism and the Just War Tradition: Walzer’s Instrumentalist Approach and an Institutionalist Response to McMahan’s “Nazi Military” Problem' (2022, Journal of Military Ethics), and 'Truth Telling, Trust, and Just Intelligence Theory' (2025, Ethics & International Affairs). Ford serves as President of the Asia-Pacific Chapter of the International Society for Military Ethics, APAC Liaison for the International Society for Military Ethics, and Faculty Affiliate with the Program on Cybersecurity and Internet Governance at Indiana University. He received the College Research Award from the Australian National University in 2013 (AUD$22,600).