Cassandra Steer FHEA is a Senior Lecturer at ANU College of Law and Mission Specialist at the ANU Institute for Space (InSpace) and the author of recent Policy Options Paper Australia as a Space Power: Combining Civil, Defence and Diplomatic Efforts.

Cassandra was formerly Acting Executive Director at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Ethics and Rule of Law, where her major focus was the design and delivery of a high level international conference on “The Weaponization of Outer Space: Ethical and Legal Boundaries”.

Cassandra is a specialist in international space law, particularly interested in how technology has changed the way international relations and wars are conducted. Her current research focuses on space security, including space situational awareness and space traffic management, and the application of the law of armed conflict and use of force in outer space. She has also been a consultant to military lawyers in the Canadian Judge Advocate General’s Office and to the United States Department of Defense on these issues.

She is a member of the Australian Space Agency’s technical Advisory group for Space Situational Awareness, and is the Canadian representative member on the International Law Association Space Law Committee, an Associate Expert on the Woomera Manual on the International Law of Military Space Operations, and a member of the International Institute of Space Law.