Bec Strating is a lecturer in Politics in the Department of Politics and Philosophy at La Trobe University, Melbourne. She primarily researches and teaches in the areas of Australian, Timor-Leste and Indonesian politics, foreign policy and comparative politics.

She has published extensively on Timor-Leste politics and foreign policy, including in Asian Security, Journal of Current Southeast Asia, Journal of Pacific History and Contemporary Southeast Asia. She recently published a book with Routledge titled Social Democracy in East Timor (2015), and has a book contract with Palgrave Macmillan for The Post-Colonial Security Dilemma: Timor-Leste and the International Community (due 2017).