Dr Michael Spann is a researcher and practitioner with experience in the design and delivery of development, capacity building and participatory development programs.

Michael enjoys working with a wide range of stakeholders from policy and government officials to subsistence and semi-subsistence agriculturalists. His long-standing engagement in Melanesia extends to working in an ongoing advisory capacity with the Solomon Islands NGO The Bushmen Farming Network and researching and writing about local conceptions of entrepreneurship and economic agency. These interests intersect with his other academic and practitioner work that centres on global development; trade, agriculture and the global political economy and the emerging Indo-Pacific Security Order.

Michael holds a PhD in Political Science from the University of Queensland as well as a Master of Development Practice from the same institution. He has lectured in the School of Political Science and International Studies at the University of Queensland and is also a guest lecturer in Global Politics and Development at the Vietnam Academy of Social Sciences (VASS). As a passionate believer in the role adult education has in sustainable and equitable development, he has also completed professional development courses in adult education teaching and training techniques.