Ideas in Motion

Meet the Minds Powering Our Research

Our academic team brings together deep expertise, intellectual rigor, and fresh perspective to advance policy research that is timely, relevant, and globally aware. Through original inquiry and interdisciplinary thinking, they help shape the ideas, frameworks, and conversations that inform stronger decision-making and meaningful public impact.

Academic Team

Non-Resident Global Fellows

Dr Joshua Snider

Dr Joshua Snider

Dr. Joshua Snider is a Canadian scholar of security studies specialising in national security governance, non-traditional security, religio-political extremism, and comparative security policy in the Middle East and Indo-Pacific regions. He served as Associate Professor of Security Studies at the UAE National Defence College, Abu Dhabi, where he taught senior military officers and government officials. His research examines governance resilience, violent extremism, demographic insecurity, and the intersection of development and national security policy. Dr. Snider is the author of Non-Traditional Security in the Middle East and North Africa (Routledge, 2026) and has contributed to policy engagement and executive education across the Gulf and Indo-Pacific.

Dr Madhav Joshi

Dr Madhav Joshi

Dr. Madhav Joshi is based at the Kroc Institute for International Peace Studies at the University of Notre Dame’s Keough School of Global Affairs. His research and teaching focus on civil wars, mediation, post-civil war democratization and democratic survival, peace duration and peacebuilding, quality peace, and the Maoist insurgency in Nepal. He received his PhD in Political Science from the University of North Texas (US). He has advised and provided policy briefings to facilitate ongoing negotiations on issues related to peace accord contents and implementation challenges for the Office of the Presidential Adviser on the Peace Process (Philippines), the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Nepal Transition to Peace, the Office of the High Commissioner for Peace (Colombia), the United Nations Development Programme, the US State Department, and civil society organizations involved in peace processes around the world.

Prof Yoichiro Sato

Prof Yoichiro Sato

Professor Yoichiro Sato teaches at Ritsumeikan Asia Pacific University and has held academic and research positions across the United States, Asia, Europe, and Latin America. He holds degrees from Keio University, University of South Carolina, and University of Hawaii. A leading scholar of Indo-Pacific strategic affairs, Professor Sato has authored and edited more than 15 books, including Security Order and Strategic Alignment in Europe and the Asia-Pacific (Routledge, 2025). He is also a prominent voice in global policy and media circles, with contributions and appearances in outlets such as BBC, Al Jazeera, and Bloomberg.

Samuel M. Makinda

Professor Emeritus Samuel M. Makinda

Professor Emeritus Samuel M. Makinda of Murdoch University in Western Australia is a globally renowned scholar whose interests include security, International Relations, and global governance. He has been a researcher at the Brookings Institution (Washington, DC), the International Institute for Strategic Studies (London), the Global Security Programme at Cambridge University, and St. Antony’s College, Oxford. He has published widely on Indo-Pacific security, democracy and human rights in Africa, global refugee movements, and the sharing of knowledge between the global North and South. His work straddles academia, public policy, and journalism. Between 2001 and 2008, he served on the Australian Foreign Minister’s National Consultative Committee for International Security Issues. Former Kenyan President Mwai Kibaki awarded him the medal of Elder of the Order of the Burning Spear in 2011 for his outstanding contribution to the Kenyan nation.

Professor Heidi Hudson

Professor Heidi Hudson

Heidi Hudson is a Professor of International Relations at the University of the Free State in South Africa and a leading scholar in feminist security studies, gender, and peacebuilding in Africa. An elected member of the Academy of Science of South Africa, she has published widely on feminist peace and African peacebuilding, and currently explores posthuman feminist approaches to peace and the “more-than-human” in conflict studies.

Professor Dimitris N. Chryssochoou

Professor Dimitris N. Chryssochoou

Professor Dimitris N. Chryssochoou is Professor of Theory and Institutions of European Integration at the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. A distinguished scholar of European integration and political science, he has held academic and visiting positions at leading universities including Cambridge, Oxford, LSE, Columbia, and Virginia Tech. He is the author of numerous influential publications and has received several prestigious honours, including recognition from the Hellenic Political Science Association, the Republic of Cyprus, and the Ecumenical Patriarchate. In 2024–25, he was awarded the Outstanding University Teaching Award by the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens.

Jorge Heine

Professor Jorge Heine

Jorge Heine is a distinguished lawyer, diplomat, and international relations scholar specializing in the politics of the Global South. He is currently a non-resident fellow at the Quincy Institute for Responsible Statecraft and an honorary professor at the Institute of International Studies, University of Chile. He previously served as Research Professor at the Pardee School of Global Studies (2019–2025). A former Chilean Cabinet minister and ambassador to South Africa, India, and China, Heine has also held senior academic positions and visiting appointments at leading universities worldwide. He is the author and editor of 18 books, including The Non-Aligned World: Striking Out in an Era of Great Power Competition and The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy. In 2023, he received the Adil Najam Prize for Advancing the Public Understanding of Global Affairs for his contributions to public understanding of global affairs.

Professor Georgios Steiris

Professor Georgios Steiris

Georgios Steiris is Professor of Medieval and Renaissance Philosophy at the Department of Philosophy of the National and Kapodistrian University of Athens and Chair of the Department (2025-2028). He previously taught at the University of Peloponnese, the Hellenic Open University, and in Study Abroad Programs of the University of Connecticut and Boston University. He has been Visiting Professor at Jyväskylä University (Finland) and Visiting Fellow at Bogazici University (Turkey) and Macquarie University (Australia). He is a member of the 7th Council (2025-2030) of the International Confucius Association. He has served as Secretary-General of the Greek Philosophical Society (2015– 2016). He was awarded the Golden Jubilee Medal ‘80 years of Al- Farabi Kazakh National University’.

Distinguished Fellows

Dr Rajneesh Kumar

Dr Rajneesh Kumar

Head (Defence Supply Chain & Technology)

Prof Roshni Sengupta

Prof. Roshni Sengupta

Head (Foreign Policy & Geopolitics)

Prof. Makhan Saikia

Prof. Makhan Saikia

Head (Globlization & Artificial Intelligence)

Research Fellows

Dr Abhishek Pratap Singh

Dr Abhishek Pratap Singh

Head (Asia Division)

Dr Neha Sinha

Dr Neha Sinha

Head (Africa Division)

Dr. Nikhil Jain

Dr. Nikhil Jain

Head (Global Electoral Landscape Division)

Ms Upma Kashyap

Ms Upma Kashyap

Head (Americas Division)

Sonali-Shrikant-Gokhale

Dr Sonali Shrikant Gokhale

Head (Indo-Pacific Division)

Dr Chandni Sengupta

Dr Chandni Sengupta

Head (Civilizational Studies)

Lauren Dagan Amoss

Dr Lauren Dagan Amoss

Head (Emerging Technologies)

Research Associates

Arindam Goswami

Arindam Goswami

Research Assistants

Sambhav Mishra

Sambhav Mishra

Dev Tripathi

Dev Tripathi

Research Interns

Pragati

Pragati

Harshita

Harshita

Jeeval

Jeeval

Utkarsh Vaid

Utkarsh Vaid

Yuvraj Pachadhari

Yuvraj Pachadhari