Cecilia is an Associate Professor in the Department of International Relations at the Coral Bell School. Her work focuses on civilian protection, mass atrocity prevention, and international human protection norms. Her work sits at the intersection of international relations, international law, and ethics. Cecilia has a geographic focus on armed conflict and political violence in South and Southeast Asia and has conducted extensive overseas field research. She is routinely invited to advise governments on atrocity prevention and conflict-related policy, and has consulted for a number of UN agencies and humanitarian organisations, including the UN Joint Office on the Prevention of Genocide and the Responsibility to Protect.

Cecilia’s books include a monograph: Child Security in Asia: The Impact of Armed Conflict in Cambodia and Myanmar, and two edited volumes: Civilian Protection in the Twenty-First Century: Governance and Responsibility in a Fragmented World and Implementing the Responsibility to Protect: A Future Agenda. She is currently completing a monograph on the international human protection order and accountability.

From 2020-2023, Cecilia was an Australian Research Council DECRA Fellow. Cecilia is co-editor-in-chief of the journal Global Responsibility to Protect and is co-chair of the Asia-Pacific Regional Grouping of GAAMAC (Global Action Against Mass Atrocity Crimes). She has held visiting appointments at the Max Planck Institute for Comparative Public Law and International Law, Heidelberg (2023), the Institute for Ethics, Law and Armed Conflict at the University of Oxford (2022), and at the Ralph Bunch Institute, City University of New York (2018).

Prior to completing her PhD, Cecilia worked for NGOs in France, Thailand and Cambodia, and for the Advisory Group for the Australian government's aid program. 

Access Cecilia's publications at https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Cecilia_Jacob/research