Lieutenant Colonel Aaron P. Jackson PhD has served in the Australian Army Reserve since 2002. He has held a range of command, staff and instructional appointments, including as Officer Commanding B Company 10/27 Battalion, The Royal South Australia Regiment, in 2018-20. His deployments include Iraq, the Greater Middle East Region, Timor Leste, Australian border security, and domestic emergency response operations. In his civilian employment he is a career Public Servant, and he has held appointments in both Federal- and State-level departments. In a civilian capacity, he commanded the out-of-hospital components of SA Health’s COVID-19 response from November 2021 to June 2022, during the state’s initial Omicron strain outbreak. He holds a PhD in international relations and is currently Senior Researcher, Joint and Integrated Military Operations in Defence Science and Technology Group, which is part of the Australian Department of Defence.