Dr. Sun Ryung Park is a Senior Research Scholar, Northeast Asia, at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is interested in green transition, energy security, and digital transformation in the Asia Pacific region.
Suvolaxmi Dutta Choudhury is Program Manager for South Asia at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She is a Doctoral Candidate in Political Science at McGill University and a former recipient of the prestigious Joseph-Armand Bombardier Canada Graduate Scholarship. She previously served as Course Lecturer in the Department of Political Science at McGill University.
Suvolaxmi has a decade of experience in research, teaching, and writing on democratic governance and foreign policy issues in India, as well as development, defence, and security matters in South Asia. She holds an M.A. (Politics) and an M.Phil. (International Politics) from Jawaharlal Nehru University, India and has received training in conflict transformation and peacebuilding.
Tanya Dawar is a Research Scholar with the South Asia Team at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. She holds a Master of Public Policy and Global Affairs from the University of British Columbia, a Master’s in Economics from the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade, and a B.Sc. in Mathematics (Honours) from the University of Delhi.
Tanya's research interests include international trade, environmental issues, and global politics.
Bart Édes is a policy analyst, commentator, and author of Learning From Tomorrow: Using Strategic Foresight to Prepare for the Next Big Disruption (2021). An APF Canada Distinguished Fellow, he focuses on developing Asian economies, international development, cross-border trade and investment, innovation, social policies, and transformative trends reshaping the world.
Farlina Said is a fellow and team lead in the Cyber and Technology Policy programme at ISIS Malaysia. She has been involved in crafting various dialogues and forums on cybersecurity, technology policy, and digital governance.
Her research focus is on cyberstability, Malaysia’s national interest in emerging technologies, as well as the peaceful and meaningful use of cyber and digital tools. Her written work and comments have appeared in media such as The New Straits Times, The Nation (Thailand), and South China Morning Post.
She served as a facilitator on ‘Cyber Norms for Responsible State Behaviour’ under the Australian Strategic Policy Institute’s regional capacity-building project and chaired the Malaysian-leg of the Track II CSCAP Study Group on International Law and Cyberspace. She has also conducted conversations on AI governance in Malaysia with the support of MyDIGITAL and Microsoft.
She was formerly a security and foreign policy analyst and currently supports ISIS Malaysia’s activities on Malaysia-Korea relations. Farlina graduated from S Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, with a MSc (Strategic Studies) with a certificate in terrorism studies. She had participated in the ROK Ministry of Unification Institute for Unification Education Emerging Leaders Fellowship in 2019.
Dr. Yujen Kuo is director and professor at the Institute of China and Asia-Pacific Studies of National Sun Yat-sen University, Taiwan. He is also vice president at the Institute for National Policy Research (INPR) and the chairperson of the Global Risk Assessment Team (GRAT) at INPR.
He has served as adviser at the Mainland Affairs Council since 2016. He is also an adviser to the Chinese National Association of Industry and Commerce and has been the president of the Taiwan Society of Japan Studies since 2019.
Dr. Kuo’s main research interests include Japan’s defence industry and policy, the U.S.-Japan alliance, and security issues in the Indo-Pacific. Dr. Kuo is the author of many academic volumes and articles in Chinese, English, and Japanese.
Dr. Kuo was formally invited to give talks to the Japanese ministry of defence, the U.S. State Department, and France’s ministry of defence to share his expertise and recommendations on security issues in the Indo-Pacific.
Don McLain Gill is a Filipino geopolitical analyst, author, and lecturer at the Department of International Studies, De La Salle University (DLSU). He is also a non-resident fellow at the Stratbase ADR Institute, a visiting senior fellow at the Impact and Policy Research Institute (IMPRI), and a non-resident fellow at the USANAS Foundation.
Don specializes in Philippine foreign policy, Indo-Pacific maritime security co-operation, and India-Southeast Asian relations. He has written in the form of books, book chapters, peer-reviewed international journal articles, newspaper columns, and commentary/ analysis articles for major international affairs publishers. Don is also regularly interviewed by international news TV channels and newspapers. He is also invited as reviewer for major scopus-indexed international journals.
Aries A. Arugay is Professor in the Department of Political Science, University of the Philippines Diliman. His research interests are civil-military relations, comparative democratization, security studies, and Philippine foreign policy. In recognition of his scientific research accomplishments, Professor Arugay was also conferred the rank of UP Scientist II (2019-2021) and UP Scientist III (2022-2024).
Aries is also a Visiting Senior Fellow and Coordinator of the Philippine Studies Programme of the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies – Yusof-Ishak Institute (Singapore) and Editor-in-Chief of Asian Politics & Policy, an academic journal published by Wiley-Blackwell and the Policy Studies Organization. He was a visiting scholar at the Universidad Mayor de San Simón (Bolivia), Universidad Central de Venezuela, Chulalongkorn University (Thailand), University of Sydney, Jeju Peace Institute (South Korea), University of Michigan at Ann Arbor, and the National Institute of Defense Studies (Japan).
He has published in academic journals such as the American Behavioral Scientist, Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Asian Perspective, International Affairs, Journal of Current Southeast Asian Affairs, Journal of East Asian Studies, Journal of Peacebuilding & Development, Pacific Affairs, Philippine Political Science Journal, among others, and wrote several book chapters published by Routledge and Palgrave Macmillan. Aries is co-editor of the edited volume Games, Changes, & Fears: The Philippines from Duterte to Marcos Jr. (ISEAS, 2024).
Professor Arugay is a member of the Board of Trustees and Treasurer of the Foundation for the National Interest, Inc., an independent think-tank based in Manila. As a Track II diplomacy practitioner, he has participated in more than one hundred international meetings, workshops, and consultations on regional security, geopolitics, democratic governance, and ASEAN integration. Aries regularly conducts lectures and handles modules for different training institutions, such as the National Defense College of the Philippines, the Philippine Public Safety College, the Foreign Service Institute, and the Development Academy of the Philippines. He is one of the country’s leading political analysts often interviewed by domestic and foreign media.
In recognition of his accomplishments, Aries received the 2019 Sheth International Alumni Award for Exceptional Achievement from his alma mater, Georgia State University. In 2020, the National Academy of Science and Technology of the Philippines awarded him as an Outstanding Young Scientist (Political Science), the second political scientist to ever receive this award.
He obtained his PhD in Political Science from Georgia State University (United States) as a Fulbright Fellow and his MA and BA (cum laude) in Political Science from the University of the Philippines-Diliman.
Suon Choi is a research fellow at the Korea Institute for Defense Analyses. She also serves as a research fellow on the ROK Ministry of National Defense’s (MND) Defense Innovation Special Advisory Committee and as an MND Policy Advisor Committee Defense Innovation Subcommittee Advisor.
Her research expertise includes South Korea’s defence strategy, the U.S.-ROK alliance, and extended deterrence. Currently, she is researching U.S. extended deterrence, its credibility, and ROK’s nuclear armament debate.
She holds a B.A. in economics and international relations from Seoul National University, summa cum laude, and an M.A. in political science from Yale University. She is a doctoral student in international affairs at Georgia Tech.
