Deborah Jeppesen

Deborah Jeppesen commenced her PhD research as a part time candidate in 2014 while continuing to work as a psychologist in the Department of Defence. Jeppesen was inspired to examine the attributes of influence in military advisors after contributing to research with Defence Science and Technology Group on threats posed to soldiers through ‘insider attack’ from foreign security force personnel they were advising. Jeppesen received the Royal United Services Institute Leo Mahoney Bursary in 2017 on the basis of the importance, innovativeness, and relevance to Australian national security of her research. This bursary enabled her to travel to the US to interview senior military personnel to add depth to her research including Generals David Petraeus and Stanley McCrystal. Deborah provided input from her research outcomes to Army’s Land Warfare Doctrine 3-0-5 on Security Force Capacity Building in 2018 and contributed to the UNSW publication The Long Road: Australia’s Train, Advise and Assist Missions with a chapter on emotional intelligence and military advisors.