Research Fellows

Krishna Vadlamannati is Associate Professor at the School of Politics and International Relations (SPIRe), University College Dublin (UCD).

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He also serves as Director of the PhD program in Global Human Development. In 2024, he was a Public Service Fellow with the Evidence Policy Unit of the Department of Further and Higher Education, Research, Innovation and Science (DEFHERIS), Government of Ireland. Krishna holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Heidelberg, Germany. Prior to UCD he was a Junior Professor at the Norwegian University of Science & Technology (NTNU), Norway and a Research Fellow at the University of Gottingen (Germany). He is Editor of The Journal of International Development. He also served on the editorial board committees of Journal of Peace Research (JPR) [2013-2022] and International Area Studies Review (IASR) [2016-2021]. He regularly provides consulting for corporate clients in India, Bangladesh, Kenya and policy think tanks like the Fraser Institute (Canada), Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) project (Sweden), Global Development Network (GDN), among others. So far, Krishna has lived in India, Sri Lanka, Spain, Germany, Norway and now Ireland. He has been working with multicultural and multidisciplinary (e.g., Politics, Economics, Finance & Banking, Management, Public Policy, Public Health, Anthropology, Sociology, Law, etc) students, research scholars, and Professors. 

Lavanya Vemsani is Board of Trusties Distinguished Professor of History in the Department of Social Sciences at Shawnee State University.

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Vemsani is also the Honorary Visiting Professor in the School of Historical Studies at Jawaharlal Nehru University. She was currently the Fulbright-Nehru Global Fellow (2021-22).

Prof. Vemsani has won a number of academic awards and honors including, Research Professor Award, Shastri Indo-Canada Post Doctoral Research Award, and Best Canadian Ph.D. Dissertation on South Asia 2007 by Canadian Asian Studies Association (CASA): Honourable mention prize.

Her research and teaching interests are interdisciplinary and multifold. She researches and publishes on subjects of ancient history and religions as well as the current history of India. Vemsani’s books include: Reframing India in World History, Handbook of Indian History, Hinduism in Middle India: Narasimha the Lord of the Middle, Feminine Journeys of the Mahabharata: Hindu Women in History, Text, and Practice; Hinduism in Text and Context; Krishna in History, Thought, and Culture: An Encyclopedia of the Lord of Many Names; Hindu and Jain Mythology of Balarama; and a number of articles on History and Religions of India.  Her upcoming books include Partition Horrors Beyond the Borders, The AUM: Early Indians

She is the Editor-in-Chief of the International Journal of Indic Religions (2020-2023); and Associate Editor of the Canadian Journal of History and the Journal of Indo-Pacific Affairs. She previously served as the Editor-in-Chief of the American Journal of Indic Studies (2018-2020 and International Journal of Dharma and Hindu Studies (2015-17); Associate Editor of Journal of South Asian Religious History (2017-20). Prof. Vemsani currently serves on the Executive Board of the Ohio Academy of History (2021-23) and previously served as the former President and Vice-President of the Ohio Academy of History (1919-21) and Founder-President of American Academy of Indic Studies. 

Matthew White SC is a barrister and arbitrator practising from Nine Wentworth Chambers in Sydney.

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He has degrees in Arts and Law from the University of Sydney and in Law from the University of Oxford. Before being called to the Bar in 1999 he practised as a solicitor in England & Wales and he has lived and worked in Hong Kong. He has written about the Indian Constitution and constitutional aspects of the Hong Kong’s transition from a British colony to a province of China administered under the National Security Law.

Maurice Newman AC is the former Chairman of Deutsche Bank Australia & New Zealand, Australian Securities Exchange (ASX), and Australian Broadcasting Corporation, and Chancellor of Macquarie University. 

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His career spans over 50 years in stockbroking and investment banking.  Dr Newman has chaired a number of Asian business alliances and has been an adviser to Australian governments, State and Federal. 

Dr Newman is currently Chairman of Melon Pastoral Pty Ltd;  Australian Digital Holdings; Hydrecyc Pte Ltd Board;  Hydrecyc Holdings Pte Ltd Board (HHPL);  SCG Heritage Trust;
M Value Capital Advisory Board; and Australia-India Trade and Investment Foundation; The India Century Round Table; Advisory Board Member of Barker Henley Global, Director of Asha Australia Foundation.

He is a Director of O’Connell Street Associates Pty Limited and Sydney Cricket Club; Senior Corporate Advisor to the Marsh & McLennan Companies; Patron, Mateship Australia; and Member, SCG Members Advisory Committee; Advance Australia Advisory Council; and CEDA Leadership Council.

Dr Newman was appointed Chairman of the Prime Minister’s Business Advisory Council in 2013; Honorary Professor in Public Diplomacy at the Soft Power Advocacy & Research Centre, Macquarie University in September 2012; and Emeritus Professor Macquarie University in 2019.  He served as a Trustee, Sydney Cricket & Sports Ground Trust, and Chairman of the Bradman Foundation; and is an Honorary Life Trustee of CEDA.

Pooja Raghav holds a PhD in International Relations from the University of Madras, where her dissertation addressed the complexities of science diplomacy.

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Currently, she works in providing strategic support and operations for Global and Education Pathways at the Australian Catholic University. Prior to this role, she served as an Assistant Professor of International Relations at Vellore Institute of Technology in India for three years. She has received full scholarships from the Geneva Science-Policy Interface (GSPI) and the Geneva Science and Diplomacy Anticipator (GESDA). Her research focuses on the intersection of science and diplomacy, particularly examining the roles of state and non-state actors in promoting effective science diplomacy initiatives. She is especially interested in the dynamics of space and science diplomacy within the context of Indian foreign policy.

Rajat Ganguly is the Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Asian Security and International Affairs (Sage) and Journal of World Affairs: Voice of the Global South (Sage).

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He is also a faculty member of the Global Security program at Murdoch University, Western Australia. He received his PhD in Political Science from Tulane University (US) and has held academic positions at Murdoch University (Australia), the University of East Anglia (UK), Victoria University of Wellington (New Zealand), the University of Southern Mississippi (US), Tulane University (US), and the University of West Florida (US). He has also been a Visiting Research Fellow at McGill University (Canada). He is a member of the editorial boards of the Journal of South Asian Development, South Asian Survey, Journal of Human Rights and Peace Studies, Journal of Law and Policy, and the Journal of North-East Indian Studies. He specializes in international relations and international security, particularly great power politics and interstate war, ethnic conflict and insurgency movements, terrorism and political violence, Indian foreign and security policy, and Asian international and strategic affairs. He is the author/editor of several books, and his articles have appeared in scholarly journals such as Small Wars and Insurgencies, Nationalism and Ethnic Politics, Third World Quarterly, Asian Studies Review, Strategic Analysis, and India Quarterly.

Ramesh Thakur is Emeritus Professor in the Crawford School of Public Policy, The Australian National University, Fellow of the Australian Institute of International Affairs, and Senior Scholar of the Brownstone Institute.

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He was formerly Senior Vice Rector of the United Nations University and Assistant Secretary-General of the United Nations. Educated in India and Canada, he has held fulltime academic appointments in Fiji, New Zealand, Canada, and Australia and been a consultant to the Australian, New Zealand and Norwegian governments on arms control, disarmament and international security issues. Professor Thakur was a Commissioner and one of the key authors of The Responsibility to Protect and Principal Writer of Secretary-General Kofi Annan’s second reform report; a Distinguished Fellow of the Centre for International Governance Innovation and Foundation Director of the Balsillie School of International Affairs in Waterloo, Ontario; Co-Convenor of the Asia–Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament; Senior Research Fellow of the Toda Institute of Peace; and Editor-in-Chief of Global Governance. Professor Thakur's books include, in chronological order: Peacekeeping in Vietnam: Canada, India, Poland and the International Commission (University of Alberta Press); Soviet Relations with India and Vietnam, 1945–1992 (Oxford University Press); The Politics and Economics of India’s Foreign Policy (Oxford University Press); The Government and Politics of India (Macmillan); South Asia in the World: Problem Solving Perspectives on Security, Sustainable Development, and Good Governance (United Nations University Press); Global Governance and the UN (Indiana University Press); The Responsibility to Protect: Norms, Laws and the Use of Force in International Politics (Routledge); The Group of Twenty (G20) (Routledge); The Oxford Handbook of Modern Diplomacy (Oxford University Press); The United Nations, Peace and Security (Cambridge University Press); and The Nuclear Ban Treaty (Routledge).

Vikram K. Malkani is a technology professional with over three decades of experience across a variety of roles in India’s information technology industry, with nearly two decades spent working for one of Australia’s largest banks.

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For several years, he has been passionate about gathering data from diverse sources and analysing it to gain insights into India's socioeconomic development. His articles and research, based on his analyses, have been published in India and internationally.