Rodney Cocks

Rodney Cocks CSM is an author, expert in international affairs, and an Australian of the Year award recipient. He was born and raised in Melbourne, Australia.

Education
Cocks attended Melbourne High School for his secondary education. After graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, he studied at The University of Melbourne and The Queensland University of Technology where he graduated with a Bachelor of Commerce and a Bachelor of Laws while undertaking full-time and part-time service in the Royal Australian Infantry. Cocks is an admitted lawyer in the State of New South Wales.

He has also studied at Ivy League graduate schools in the United States. Cocks is an MBA graduate from The Wharton School at The University of Pennsylvania school in the US, where he was awarded a Joseph Wharton Scholarship. Cocks is currently an MPA student at the Harvard Kennedy School, where he is part of the Dubin Fellows Program for Emerging Leaders at the Harvard Center for Public Leadership.

Professional career
Cocks was an Australian Army officer in the Royal Australian Infantry, where he rose to the rank of Captain. His military career took him to the UK, Europe and South East Asia on training activities and, in 2002, on operations to East Timor as part of the UN peacekeeping force.

In 2003, as a civilian, Cocks joined the United Nation's de-mining team in Iraq, which was responsible for the removal of millions of landmines and unexploded munitions in the country and supporting the establishment of an Iraqi Government de-mining organisation. In early 2004 Cocks joined the United Nations mission in Afghanistan in early 2004 as an adviser covering security and political issues in the former Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold of Kandahar and southern Afghanistan. He served there to support two democratic elections, a disarmament process, humanitarian relief programmes and reconstruction projects.

In mid-2007 Cocks was redeployed with the United Nations to the volatile areas in northern Sri Lanka, where the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers were fighting a civil war. Cocks returned to Afghanistan in 2008 as part of the counter narcotics team at the British Embassy in Kabul and worked to reduce the opium production in the country.

Terrorist bombings in Bali and Baghdad
While on leave from the East Timor peacekeeping force, Cocks was holidaying in Kuta, Bali, at the time of the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people. Injured in the attacks, he helped the injured and dying and performed trauma first aid. Just over ten months later, during his UN service in Baghdad, he was injured when a suicide bomber struck the UN's Headquarters that killed dozens of people. Once again, he helped the injured from unstable and burning buildings, perform trauma first aid and load people for evacuation to hospitals; also being commended for his actions.

Australian of the Year award
Cocks was named the Victorian Australian of the Year for 2005 and one of eight finalists for the Australian of the Year 2005 for his humanitarian service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and for his actions following the Bali and Baghdad terrorist attacks.

Federal Parliamentary candidate
At the 2007 federal election, Cocks was the unsuccessful Australian Labor Party candidate for the federal seat of La Trobe. He swung the overall vote against the incumbent by 6.62% but failed to win the seat by 0.51% of the vote.

Honours
For his action in Bali, Cocks was awarded an Australian Conspicuous Service Medal and a UN Peacekeeping Force Commander's Commendation. He has also been awarded an Australian Active Service Medal (East Timor), an Australian Defence Medal, an Australian Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal (Iraq and Afghanistan) and the UN Medal (East Timor).

Books
Cocks has authored and co-authored four books. He has written an autobiographical book, Bali to Baghdad and Beyond, which was published by Penguin. Cocks has also co-authored two Lonely Planet guidebooks; Pakistan and the Karakoram Highway (using his own name) and Afghanistan (under the pen name Nick Walker). He was also the author of Timor-Leste (East Timor) Lonely Planet guidebook.

Personal
Cocks is married and has one daughter and a son.