Dr Sinclair Dinnen was appointed as a Post Doctoral Fellow when SSGM commenced in 1996. He is currently a Senior Fellow. Sinclair has qualifications in law and criminology and has lectured at the Law Faculty of the University of Papua New Guinea and been a researcher at the Papua New Guinea National Research Institute. His doctoral research undertaken in Port Moresby and parts of the Highlands was published as Law and Order in a Weak State: Crime and Politics in Papua New Guinea (2001). He has longstanding research interests in legal pluralism, crime, conflict and peacebuilding  with particular reference to the Melanesian Pacific countries. Sinclair is a contributing author to Pillars and Shadows: Statebuilding as Peacebuilding in Solomon Islands (with John Braithwaite, Matthew Allen, Valerie Braithwaite and Hilary Charlesworth, 2010). His edited books include Reflections on Violence in Melanesia (with Alison Ley, 2000); A Kind of Mending: Restorative Justice in the Pacific Islands (with Anita Jowett and Tess Newton, 2003); Politics and State Building in Solomon Islands (with Stewart Firth, 2008) and Civic Insecurity: Law, Order and HIV in Papua New Guinea (with Vicki Luker, 2010). He recently co-authored (with Doug Porter and Caroline Sage) a background paper on Conflict in Melanesia: Themes and Lessons for the World Development Report 2011. His present research looks at issues of state-building and nation-building, aid policy, informal justice and policing in Melanesia. Sinclair has also engaged in extensive policy work in the areas of law and justice, policing and conflict analysis for a range of non-government, government and international organisations including AusAID, World Bank, UNDP and UNICEF.