Dr. Ashok Sharma is a Visiting Fellow/Adjunct Senior Lecturer at the University of New South Wales at the Australian Defence Force Academy and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the Institute of Governance and Policy Analysis at the University of Canberra where he the Head of the “South Asia Strategic, State Fragile and Security Program, and Conjoint Head of “Indo-Pacific Strategic Issues and Major Powers Studies” at the National Asian Security Studies Centre. Dr. Sharma has been a Visiting Fellow at the Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, Coral Bell School of Asia-Pacific Affairs, the Australian National University and the Deputy Chair of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA), Auckland Branch (February 2012- June 2022).
Before joining the UNSW Canberra at ADFA in November 2016, Dr. Sharma was a Fellow of the Australia-India Institute at the University of Melbourne; a Fellow (Honorary) of New Zealand-India Research Institute at the Victoria University of Wellington; Lecturer at the University of Auckland; a Visiting Academic at the University of Waikato; and an Endeavour Post- Doctoral Fellow on the Qaud Security Dialogue at the Research School of Asia-Pacific at the Australian National University in 2008.
Educated in India, Ashok received his B. A. in Political Science (Hons.) from Ramjas College, Delhi University, an M.A. in Political Science, and an M. Phil. and Ph.D. in American Studies from the Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. Ashok was a Faculty at the University of Delhi and worked with New Delhi-based strategic and foreign policy thinks tanks.
Dr. Sharma specialises on the US–India–China great power politics in the Indo-Pacific and is one of the leading experts on the India-US relations and India’s global engagement including India’s growing strategic ties with Australia in the Indo-Pacific. Extensively published and globally in demand, Ashok is the author of India’s Pursuit of Energy Security: Domestic measures, Foreign Policy and Geopolitics and Indian Lobbying and its Influence in US Decision Making Post-Cold War. Ashok writes frequently for the popular outlets including for Australian Outlook, The Conversation and The Times of India under the blog name, “Ashok’s Statecraft”