Professor Chris Wallace works in modern and contemporary political history and public policy with special reference to leadership, gender, transnational lives, and transformational change and the information strategies underlying it.

Wallace's latest book, Political Lives: Australian prime ministers and their biographers (UNSW Press, 2023), was shortlisted for the NSW Premier's Prize in History. Her book on Australian Labor's shock 2019 election loss, How To Win An Election, (NewSouth, 2020), contextualised it against the backdrop of the last half-century of Australian federal elections. Previous books include The Private Don (Allen & Unwin, 2004), an exploration of the intense 30 year-long relationship between cricketer Don Bradman and his confidante, journalist Rohan Rivett; a biography of maverick Australian feminist Germaine Greer, Greer, Untamed Shrew (Pan Macmillan, 1997; Faber & Faber, 1999); and a biography of the then crusading neoliberal policy exponent John Hewson during his Opposition leadership in the early 1990s, Hewson: A Portrait (Pan Macmillan, 1993). She was the National Archives of Australia Cabinet Historian in 2020 and 2021 for the release of the 2000 and 2001 Cabinet papers.

Wallace gave the UC 2024 Aitkin Lecture at the National Press Club, Canberra, and the 2023 Seymour Biography Lecture at the National Library of Australia.

A first career as an economic and political journalist in the Canberra Press Gallery has contributed to Wallace's success in public-facing scholarly communications, including through The Conversation which has twice named her one of Australia's 'Top Thinkers' (2017 and 2019). Her occasional commentary and analysis can be read in Nikkei Asia, the Sydney Morning Herald, The Age and The Saturday Paper. X: @c_s_wallace