Cesar Alvarez

César Álvarez is a Lecturer in Terrorism Studies at Charles Sturt University’s Australian Graduate School of Policing and Security, an expert consultant to both the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime and the UN Office of Counter-Terrorism. He is also a Fellow of the Innovation for Development Foundation (I+D), and the co-founder and Chair of The Australia–Colombia Dialogue. His commentary on transnational crime, security, and Australian–Latin American relations has appeared in The Wall Street Journal, the BBC, The Australian, Australian Financial Review, The Canberra Times, SBS Radio, ABC’s The World and The Drum, CNN en Español, and leading Colombian outlets including El Tiempo Portafolio, and Alternativa Magazine.

Before joining academia, César worked at the Australian Strategic Policy Institute (ASPI), researching links between Australian and Latin American organised crime, Colombian politics, and drug trafficking. He has also advised Colombia’s National Police Counter-Narcotics Directorate, the Doctrine and Planning Office, and the UNODC Terrorism Prevention Branch. He holds a Master of Policing, Intelligence and Counter-Terrorism and a Master of International Security Studies from Macquarie University, and a Bachelor’s in Government and International Relations from Externado University (Colombia).

Since 2017 he has taught postgraduate subjects on Terrorist Financing and Resourcing, Transnational Organised Crime, Terrorism Communications and Propaganda, and Illicit Networks at AGSPS, and previously lectured at the Colombian Police Academy, Universidad Militar Nueva Granada, Pontificia Universidad Javeriana, and Universidad Sergio Arboleda. His research spans the crime–terror nexus, mafia states, geopolitics, insurgent groups, and Australian–Latin American affairs. In 2025 he published his first illustrated book, Colombian Heart and Australian Soul, celebrating bicultural identity between the two nations.