Cecilia Dunster is a retired Police Chief Inspector from the United Kingdom. During her 31 year career she worked in a variety of roles including response, community policing, criminal investigation, criminal intelligence, fraud and financial investigation, strategic development and information and communications technology.

As a senior leader, she served as the deputy commander for Oxford city, a silver commander for complex and multi-agency crime investigations and threat to life incidents and led and delivered projects across her police service and region. The most challenging and satisfying aspect of her police career was her involvement in international policing. She served for two years in the United Nations Mission in South Sudan, where she led the team that implemented community policing to the internally displaced people in the UN Protection of Civilian sites and to the South Sudan National Police Service, for which she was awarded a UN Highest Commendation. She has also served in the NATO Mission in Afghanistan, working with senior police, police advisors and the Ministry of Interior on police reform and the development of policing services. She served alongside the UK Military during an exercise in Bosnia Herzegovina (BiH), advising the UK exercise commander and colleagues, BiH political leaders, senior officers from BiH military and public services in the silver and gold command teams. She was appointed as the deputy commander for a EUPST exercise in the Netherlands.

Cecilia has written a paper on managing risk in a conflict environment that was published by the Scottish Institute for Policing Research. She has lectured to undergraduates, post-graduates and professional colleagues at universities in the UK, Europe and Asia. She has also presented at conferences and seminars in Europe, Africa, Central America and Asia. She continues to contribute to policy development and research. Following her retirement from the UK police she has been advising the Nepal Police on improving recruitment and retention of female police officers. Cecilia joined the Police Expert’s Network (PEN) in 2015 and has been an enthusiastic and dedicated contributor throughout the ICT4COP Community-based Policing and Post Conflict Police Reform project. She remains committed to maintaining and developing the PEN in order to disseminate the project findings and support further research and practice development. Cecilia has a Masters degree in Police Leadership and Management from the University of Leicester, UK.