NTSC staff

Chair: Andrew Leigh, MP

Prior to being elected to the Australian Parliament in 2010 as the member for Fraser, Andrew was a professor of economics at the Australian National University.

Andrew has written extensively on a range of subjects, including education, taxation and social policy. He also writes fortnightly for the Australian Financial Review.

Andrew holds a PhD in public policy from Harvard, having graduated from the University of Sydney with first class honours in Law and Arts. He has previously worked as a lawyer (including a stint as associate to former High Court Justice Michael Kirby), and as a principal adviser to the Australian Treasury.

Andrew has been a member of the Australian Labor Party since 1991.

When not in the office, Andrew enjoys spending time with his wife Gweneth and their two sons. His favourite activities include jogging around the lake with Theodore in the stroller, and taking Sebastian along to play soccer.

Executive director: Professor Peter Warr
BSc(Sydney), MSc(London), PhD(Stanford), FASSA.

Professor Peter Warr has been a member of the academic staff of ANU since 1980. He is currently the John Crawford Professor of Agricultural Economics and Head of the Arndt-Corden Department of Economics as well as Executive Director of the NTSC.

His research interests are the economies of Thailand and Indonesia, especially measurement of poverty incidence, analysis of its causes and the means by which economic policy may be used to reduce poverty incidence.
He is a former Visiting Professor or Economics at Thammasat University (1986-87) and Chulalongkorn University (2000-2001). His books include:

• The Thai Economy in Transition, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 1993.
• Thailand's Macroeconomic Miracle: Stable Adjustment and Sustained Growth, World Bank, Washington DC and Oxford University Press, 1996.
• Thailand Beyond the Crisis, Routledge, London, 2001.

He was elected a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences in Australia in 1997 and is an Editorial Board member for several academic journals. He has been a consultant for the Australian Government, the Thai Government, the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank, and the United Nations.

Assistant director: Ms Chintana Sandilands

Ms Chintana Sandilands [BA, MA (Faculty of Economics, Thammasat University, Bangkok, Thailand), Graduate Diploma in Public Policy, Public Policy Program, ANU]. She was awarded the Australian National University Vice Chancellors Award for Excellence in Teaching (with team) in 1997, an ACT International Women's Day Award in 2008. Presently she is Convenor of the Thai Program and the Year in Asia (Thailand and Lao PDR) Program, in the Southeast Asia Centre and Assistant Director of the National Thai Studies Centre (NTSC), Canberra, Australia.

Ms Chintana Sandilands is a lecturer and tutor with the Southeast Asia Centre and specialises in Thai language and culture, as well as other aspects of Thai studies particularly contemporary political, economic and social issues. She teaches Intermediate and Advanced Thai language courses.

Ms Sandilands undertook collaborative research with Professor John Clark, Department of Art History and Theory, University of Sydney, 2000-2001, on The Economic Base of Thai Artists, funding from the Australian Research Council. She is currently working on Expatriate Thai Perspectives of Australia and The Impacts of Chinese Business Commandments on the Ethical Perceptions of Thai Business People. She is Vice-President of the Thai Community of the ACT Inc., and a member of the Australia-Thailand Association of Canberra.