Ben is a Senior Lecturer (Fellow) in the Department of International Relations at the Australian National University. 

His research focuses on the politics of the great powers and the management of nuclear weapons. His work has appeared in over a dozen different peer-reviewed journals such as Review of International Studies, Journal of Global Security Studies, Third World Quarterly, The Nonproliferation Review and the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists.

His book Power in International Society: A Perceptual Approach to Great Power Politics is under contract with Oxford University Press and his edited volume, National Perspectives on a Multipolar Order, was published by Manchester University Press in 2021.

He has been a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in the Belfer Center for Science & International Affairs at Harvard University and has previously held positions in the UK at the Oxford Research Group, Chatham House, and the University of Leicester. He is also currently an Honorary Fellow at the University of Leicester where he contributes to the European Research Council-funded project, Towards a Third Nuclear Age.