Ross McKerracher

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  Ross McKerracher

  Distinguished Visiting Fellow

  Short Bio

  Ross McKerracher is the inaugural international security affairs fellow at the Hoover Institution. He has twenty years of experience in the Australian government, including in national security and senior leadership. He is focused on how US-China technological competition will affect balances of power between nation states. McKerracher has a PhD in physics (University of Sydney), and BE/BSc (University of Western Australia).

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  Mid-Length Bio

  Ross McKerracher is serving as the inaugural international security affairs fellow at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University, while on a one-year leave from his national security role in the Australian Government.

  With physics, neuroscience, and engineering qualifications, McKerracher has spent twenty years in the Australian Public Service: in regulatory, policy, national security, and senior executive roles. In these roles he has advised the governments on the strategic, national security, economic, and political implications of cyberspace, science, and technology issues. He has also built and led institutional capabilities in these areas.

  McKerracher takes an integrated, multidisciplinary approach to help senior decision-makers understand the effect of technology on how states exercise power and how the exercise of state power affects technological development. He works with a range of government agencies as well as private sector and academic partners—fusing disciplines such as science (including data science), engineering, economics, history, strategic studies, and political science.

  At Hoover he will focus on how technology intersects with alliances and strategic competition. More specifically how the trajectory of US-China technological competition will affect the balances of power between the US, China, and other nation-states. His analysis will include technologies such as AI, quantum technologies, space, semiconductors, and biotechnology along with cross-cutting factors such as research strength, talent, supply chains, capital flows, and market access. He’s seeking to use quantitative and qualitative methods—harnessing the utility of AI tools where feasible.

  McKerracher has a PhD in physics (nonlinear fiber optics) from the University of Sydney and undergraduate degrees in electronic engineering (honors) and science (physiology and neuroscience) from the University of Western Australia.

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