Susan is an international lawyer based in Lisbon and admitted to practice in New Zealand. She is a former Crown Counsel in the criminal team of New Zealand's Crown Law Office and justice of the criminal division of the Belize Supreme Court. Susan is a member of the Coordinating Committee for the International Anti-Corruption Court (IACC), overseeing the development of the IACC Statute, and a member of the Chartered Institute of Arbitrators (CIARB). She has held several senior roles before United Nations international criminal tribunals, including as Senior Judicial Coordinator to the Chambers of the Extraordinary Chambers in the Courts of Cambodia, Chef de Cabinet of the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, and Appeals Counsel in the Office of the Prosecutor of the International Criminal Tribunal for Yugoslavia. She has worked on a wide range of other rule of law, counter-terrorism, accountability, anti-corruption and gender justice assignments in several fragile and conflict-affected states on behalf of UN and regional organisations, governments and NGOs. She holds degrees from Otago University in law and international relations and undertook doctoral studies at Oxford University focussed on the scope of the UN Security Council's enforcement powers.

At THE NEW INSTITUTE, Susan is involved in several programs and will be working on the project "Governing the Global Commons: The Un Security Council's Management of Complex and Interconnected Threats to International Peace and Security".