[1][2] Educated at Unley High School, she completed a Bachelor of Arts degree with Honours at the University of Adelaide in 1970.
[2] Under the guidance of M. L. Dockrill, Beaumont graduated in 1975 with a thesis titled "Great Britain and the Soviet Union: The Supply of Munitions, 1941–1945".
Promoted to senior lecturer, Beaumont's doctoral thesis was published in 1980 as her first book: Comrades in Arms: British Aid to Russia, 1941–1945.
[1][2] Beaumont has occupied a number of senior academic leadership positions since 1993, the first being Head of the School of Australian and International Studies at Deakin.
[1][6] Dean of Arts and Social Sciences from 2010 to 2011, she has been a professor in the ANU's Strategic and Defence Studies Centre since 2012;[1][6] Beaumont was elected a Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs the same year.