Dr. Sun Ryung Park is a Senior Research Specialist, 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.
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.
Dr. Nanae Baldauff is the inaugural Japan-focused Indo-Pacific Research Fellow and a Senior (Non-Resident) Associate Fellow at the NATO Defense College in Italy and is currently serving as an academic mentor at the College. She is also Associate Research Fellow at the United Nations University Institute on Comparative Regional Integration Studies (UNU-CRIS) in Belgium, as well as Senior Researcher at Keio Research Institute at SFC, Japan.
She is the author of a monograph Japan’s Defense Engagement in the Indo-Pacific: Deterrence, Strategic Partnership, and Stable Order Building (Springer, 2024). She has published peer-reviewed articles, numerous research papers, and policy briefs, on topics covering space security, defence technology co-operation, and the defence industry. She has given lectures at numerous universities including courses at the NATO Defense College.
Nanae obtained a Ph.D. in Political Science (Ghent University, Belgium) in 2022. She is a recipient of the Japan Foundation fellowship (2021). Nanae was Research Fellow at the NATO Defense College (2024) as the first Japanese national to be awarded this position. Additionally, she serves on the board of International Security Industry Council Japan.
Her main research and interests include Japan’s defence policy, the Indo-Pacific security and strategic environment, Japan-Europe defence co-operation (NATO, EU, and individual countries), space security, and defence innovation and industry.
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.
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.
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.
Jonathan Berkshire Miller is Director of Foreign Affairs, National Defence and National Security, Macdonald-Laurier Institute. Jonathan is an international affairs professional with expertise on security, defence and geo-economic issues in the Indo-Pacific. He is also concurrently a senior fellow with the Japan Institute of International Affairs (JIIA) and senior fellow on East Asia for the Tokyo-based Asian Forum Japan.
Miller is also the Director and co-founder of the Council on International Policy. He also holds appointments as Canada’s ASEAN Regional Forum Expert and Eminent Person (EEP) and as a Responsible Leader for the BMW Foundation. He regularly attends track 1.5 and track 2 dialogues in the region; lectures to universities, think-tanks, corporations and others across the Asia-Pacific region; and has published widely on security and defence issues.
Karen Hui is a Project Co-ordinator with the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada. With a master's degree in sociology from the Chinese University of Hong Kong, she specializes in policy and academic research related to social development from critical perspectives, especially labour, social movements, public health, and supply chain.
David Matijasevich teaches political science at Capilano University in North Vancouver, Canada. His research and teaching interests include populism and protest, regime change and resilience, democratic theory and practice, and the politics of Thailand and Singapore.
Dr. Ari Van Assche is Full Professor of International Business at HEC Montréal and Co-Director of the International Institute of Economic Diplomacy. He serves as Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of International Business Policy, Fellow-in-Residence at the C.D. Howe Institute, and Director of the Economics Axis at CERIUM’s Chair of Asian and Indo-Pacific Studies. Ari is also a John H. McArthur Research Fellow at the Asia Pacific Foundation of Canada.
