I am a Leverhulme Doctoral Fellow in the Centre for Grand Strategy at the Department of War Studies, King’s College London and Adjunct Research Associate at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore. My expertise is in issues related to security, foreign policy and rising powers with an empirical focus on India, Middle East/West Asia and the Indo-Pacific.
My research has been published in peer-reviewed journals such as International Politics, Asia Policy and The Washington Quarterly and am a frequenter commentator in the media including Bloomberg, Al Jazeera, The Hindu, Hindustan Times, The Diplomat, The National Interest, Lawfare, Bourse & Bazaar and Al-Monitor among others. I have co-edited (with Rajesh Basrur) a volume titled India and Japan: Assessing the Strategic Partnership (Palgrave Macmillan, 2018; also available at Amazon) that brings together experts from India, Japan and the United States to examine past, current and future trajectories of the relationship.
I have spent over a decade working at the intersection of policy and academia with stints in the US (Atlantic Council of the USA; Albright Stonebridge Group; World Resources Institute), India (The Takshashila Institution) and, most recently, Singapore (RSIS). As a former journalist, I particularly value insights from the ground and have extensive field-work experience including in India, US, Iran, Israel, UAE, Thailand, Indonesia, Malaysia and the strategic island states of Maldives, Mauritius and Seychelles.
I hold multiple degrees in journalism from India (Asian College of Journalism; St. Aloysius College) and a master’s degree in security studies from Georgetown University, Washington D.C.
You can find me on Google Scholar and read about my KCL Leverhulme Project here.
On Twitter, I am @sumithakutty.
Professional Activities
- Research Fellow, Project SEPAD
- Member, International Studies Association (ISA)
- APYO “Young Leader”, IISS Shangri-la Dialogue (Asia Security Summit), 2016
- Scholar, Takshashila Institution (India), 2014-2015
- Helms Fellow for Global Outreach, World Resources Institute, 2013
- Former member, Association of Women for Action and Research (AWARE) Singapore (2017-20)