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Shuvaloy Majumdar is Programme Director and Munk Senior Fellow for Foreign Policy at the Macdonald-Laurier Institute.

Dr Shweta Khandelwal is a trained and experienced researcher working in the public health andnutrition space in India for the last 2 decades. She has an honorary affiliation-Senior Public HealthNutrition Expert, Centre for Chronic Disease Control (CCDC) Delhi. She also holds a Visiting Scientistat the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research. Until April 2023, she was the Head, NutritionResearch at the Public Health Foundation of India, where she served for more than 15 years. Shwetais an invited Adjunct faculty for many colleges all over India (TNAU, Ambedkar University, SVTCollege, etc), where she teaches maternal child nutrition, nutrition policy, nutrition epidemiology,especially in relation to the rising overweight-obesity, diet-related non-communicable diseases andtheir risk factors among the Indian population. She has served on expert government panels ontopics like oils and fats, sustainable healthy diets, and combating high fat, sugar and salt in the Indianpopulation, etc. As an inaugural cohort member of the Women Lift Health fellowship, Shweta is asincere advocate for gender equity and women empowerment especially in nutrition. Shweta strivesto push for holistic, multi-sectoral and integrated interventions and solutions when it comes to PHN.She is an invited speaker in the area of food environment, food systems, climate change andnutrition security. In addition to more than 100 peer-reviewed articles in scholarly journals, she hascontributed to more than 200 media pieces including 70 op-eds in leading international and nationalprint and online platforms. Shweta has also won several prestigious awards, fellowships and grantsin the area of nutrition.

Siddharth Yadav is a PhD scholar with a background in history, literature and cultural studies. He acquired BA (Hons) and MA in History from the University of Delhi followed by an MA in Cultural Studies of Asia, Africa, and the Middle East from SOAS, University of London. Subsequently, he completed his doctoral research at Birkbeck College, University of London. His research focuses on the socio-cultural and philosophical implications of emerging technologies like artificial intelligence, virtual reality, and brain-computer interfaces.

Sidhant Kumar is an advocate based in New Delhi. Heworks oncommercial and regulatory litigation. Sidhant is the co-author of Privacy Law: Principles Injunctions and Compensation one of the first detailed books on the subject in India.

Silvana is an entrepreneur intellectual property expert and innovator strategist. She is the CEO &: Co-founder of The Blockchain Challenge Inc. a Boston-based startup with technology and methodology inspired at MIT and focused on building a Web 3.0 decentralized global marketplace of technical developers and enthusiasts. Silvana has over 15 years of global experience in business development innovation knowledge management and technology licensing for global clients. With a background in law Silvana holds an MBA degree and a Sustainability Certificate from the MIT Sloan School of Management. She is also the recipient of the Womens Fort Foundation Scholarship (March 2015) and of the Deans Fellowship Award at MIT Sloan School of Management (May 2016).

Simantini Ghosh is an Assistant professor of Psychology at Ashoka University India. Her research interests lie at intersections of gender-based violence and discrimination and mental health as well as neuroscience and psychology of complex trauma.

She is the Founder and Chief Architect of the Blue Heritage Chamber of Commerce, leading sovereign innovation across Africa’s maritime, ceremonial, and defence ecosystems. Her frameworks operationalise ancestral intelligence into digital governance tools—spanning sustainability calculators, ceremonial scorecards, and strategic trade protocols. With experience advising African states on the maritime industry and the Blue Economy, she negotiates institutional partnerships grounded in ecological ethics and memory. Simone’s work fuses folklore with infrastructure, ritualising traditional armaments as living archives and sovereign interfaces. She anchors her tools—such as harmoniQ, Aquatica, and Tendai—in commercial logic, peer-reviewed research, and ceremonial stewardship. Her leadership translates complexity into clarity, scripting investor-facing narratives that demand legacy alignment and mutual risk. As Africa reclaims its strategic authorship, Simone builds technologies that remember, defend, and regenerate.

Simran Sodhi is a Delhi-based journalist and foreign affairs analyst. She holds a Masters in International Relations from the American University in Washington DC. In 2009 her book Piercing the Heart- Untold Stories of 26/11 was published. She has written for The Statesman Al Arabiya English Khaleej Times and is a regular analyst on All India Radio programmes on foreign affairs.

Simran Walia is a Research Analyst at Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses (MP-IDSA), New Delhi and is pursuing a PhD in Japanese Studies from Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi. She has also completed her M.Phil in Japanese Studies from JNU. Her research interests include Japan’s politics, foreign policy, and overall Indo-Pacific dynamics.

Sinderpal Singh is a Senior Fellow and Assistant Director at the Institute of Defence and Strategic Studies, and Coordinator of both the South Asia and Regional Security Architecture Programmes at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies, Nanyang Technological University, Singapore. His research focuses on South Asia’s international relations, Indian foreign policy, India–Southeast Asia ties, and the geopolitics of the Indian Ocean Region. Previously, he was a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of South Asian Studies and a Post-Doctoral Fellow at the National University of Singapore. He is the author of India in South Asia: Domestic Identity Politics and Foreign Policy from Nehru to the BJP (Routledge, 2013) and editor of Modi and the World: (Re)Constructing Indian Foreign Policy (World Scientific, 2017). His work has appeared in Asia Policy, Asian Security, Pacific Affairs, and Contemporary Southeast Asia. He holds a PhD from the University of Wales, Aberystwyth, an MA from Australian National University, and a BA from National University of Singapore.

Siva Athreya is a Professor at the International Centre for Theoretical Sciences-TIFR. His primary field of interest is probability theory. He has worked on models arising from statistical physics and population biology, particularly Stochastic partial differential equations, Diffusions on tree like networks, Random Graphs and related topics. He got his PhD in Mathematics from the University of Washington, Seattle, in 1998 and before joining the  International Centre for Theoretical Sciences-TIFR in 2022, he was with the Indian Statistical Institute since 2001. He was awarded the Shanti Swarup Bhatnagar Prize for Science and Technology in 2012. Since 2021, he has  been working with the  Department of health and family welfare services with modelling for infectious diseases, e.g. Dengue and new variants of COVID-19 and also been involved in helping the Principal Scientific advisor’s office on disease modelling for livestock.

Lt Gen (Dr) S.K. Gadeock, AVSM (Retd), holds a doctorate in Defence and Strategic Studies from the University of Madras. He is author of From War to Peace: Wisdom and Leadership – Ex-Serviceman’s Role in Good Governance and Rural Development (Pentagon Press, 2023).

Smruti Koppikar Mumbai-based independent journalist essayist and city chronicler writes at the intersection of urban issues politics technology gender and media. She worked in senior editorial positions in national publications speaks as a television panellist and teaches journalism.

Snehashish was an Urban Studies Fellow at ORF Mumbai. His research focus is on issues of urban housing, environmental justice, borderlands and citizenship politics.

He has extensive work and research experience in Northeast India, where he has worked on issues of out-migration, Look East Policy and borderland urbanization. Such experiences have culminated into meaningful engagements in housing and citizenship rights of people. His fieldwork experiences, conducted through ethnographic methods, have developed a keen sense of grasping peoples’ sentiments and ability to centre peoples’ experiences in policy and governance. He is also equipped with archival research experiences which complimented his interests in how the state thinks and plans to execute its programme and agendas.

Snehashish did his postgraduate studies from the Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Guwahati and holds a PhD from the National Institute of Advanced Studies (NIAS), Bangalore. As a recipient of the Fulbright-Nehru Doctoral Scholarship, he spent 9 months at the Department of Anthropology, Yale University. Snehashish has published in multiple academic and public platforms over the years. He has published in English and Bengali.

Soham Agarwal is an Associate Fellow in the Public International Maritime Law Cluster at the National Maritime Foundation in New Delhi.

Sohini Bose is an Associate Fellow at Observer Research Foundation (ORF), Kolkata with the Strategic Studies Programme. Her area of research is India’s eastern maritime neighbourhood, where she explores connectivity, geopolitics and security concerns in the Bay of Bengal and Andaman Sea. Disaster Management in the Bay and its associated strategic considerations, with an eye on BIMSTEC, is her particular area of interest. She is also nurturing the theme of Blue Economy. Maritime studies aside, she observes developments in Bangladesh as a part of the ORF Neighbourhood Studies Initiative. Sohini is a 2021, US Department of State International Visitor Leadership Program (IVLP) Fellow and a Non-resident Fellow at the National Bureau of Asian Research (NBR), Washington D.C., since January 2022. She is also pursuing her Ph.D. in International Relations from Jadavpur University, Kolkata.

Sohini Nayak was a Junior Fellow at Observer Research Foundation. Presently she is working on Nepal-India and Bhutan-India bilateral relations along with sub regionalism and regional multilateral institutions in South Asia and the Bay of Bengal and beyond at ORF.

Soma Das is a senior advisor to Chase India and also advises projects of UN agencies not-for-profits and social enterprises. Soma has been a business journalist for a decade leading the coverage of pharmaceuticals healthcare and intellectual property among other areas for publications like The Economic Times and The Financial Express. She has over 16 years of experience spanning academics journalism and the development space. She is the author of The Reluctant Billionaire published by Penguin Random House which has been nominated for eminent national-level awards like the Tata Literature Awards.

Soma Sarkar is an Associate Fellow with ORF’s Urban Studies Programme.

Her research interests span the intersections of environment and development, urban studies, water governance, Water, Sanitation and Hygiene (WASH), GESI (Gender Equality and Social Inclusion), climate change adaptation, city resilience, institutional governance, and public policy. Her doctoral research explores urban water crises and governance mechanisms in the complex urban waterscapes of the Indian Himalayas, contributing to the discourse on sustainable urban futures in ecologically sensitive regions.

Prior to joining ORF, Soma was as an Assistant Professor at the Centre for Environment, Urban Governance and Infrastructure Development, Administrative Staff College of India (ASCI), Hyderabad (2024–2025). At ASCI, she co-directed training programmes on Public-Private Partnerships in Municipal Solid Waste Management and worked on projects related to urban water governance, evaluation of centrally sponsored urban transformation schemes, and WASH innovations. Previously, at the Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), Mumbai, Soma has worked on a range of research projects on WASH, urban water governance, forest resource rights and governance, and Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). She also served as the student coordinator of the Customized Study in India Programme curated by the International Relations Office, TISS Mumbai in 2018-19 with University of Chicago and University of Sydney.

Soma has an MPhil in Development Studies from Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. She has been disseminating her work through academic publications and presentations at national and international conferences. She has co-edited a book titled "Urban Commons, Future Smart Cities and Sustainability," as a part of the Springer Geography series, published by Springer Nature in 2023.

Sonam Mandani is the Chief Technology Officer at Clean-Water.

After having completed her Doctorate thesis (1996) at the Institute of Political Science (Paris France)) Dr. Sophie Boisseau du Rocher has been pursuing her research on regionalism in South-East Asia and on the political processes in the different member-States of the Association. Her last book La Chine e(s) le monde Essai sur la sino-mondialisation (Essay on Sino-Globalisation) was published in March 2019 (France). She is Senior Research Fellow at Center for Asian Studies IFRI (French Institute of International Relations)

Dr Soumya Awasthi is Fellow, Centre for Security, Strategy and Technology at the Observer Research Foundation.

Her work focuses on the intersection of technology and national security.

Dr Soumya Awasthi, has previously worked at the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change, London, Vivekananda International Foundation, New Delhi, and the Manohar Parrikar Institute for Defense and Strategic Analysis (MPIDSA) in New Delhi. She was a Fellow with the International Visitors Leadership Program (IVLP) of the US State Department.

Soumya research interests include key areas in security and strategic studies. Her focus on counterterrorism, Deradicalization, South Asian strategic studies, Afghanistan, and India's defence and strategic policy.

Soumya holds a Doctorate from the School of International Studies (SIS) at Jawaharlal Nehru University.

She has authored book Compendium on Terror Groups (VIF, 2022), Tracing Journey of India's Defence Budget and Its Future: An Analysis (Kalinga, 2015), and Co-edited, Indias Nuclear Titan Biographical Tales (Vitasta,2023). She has contributed several chapters in Co-edited books.

Soumya Bhowmick is a Fellow and Lead, World Economies and Sustainability at the Centre for New Economic Diplomacy (CNED) at Observer Research Foundation (ORF). He is pursuing his PhD and holds a double master’s degree in economics from Jadavpur University, Kolkata, and the University of Antwerp, Belgium (specialising in Globalisation Economics and European Integration). He was previously awarded the Government of Japan’s JASSO Scholarship, the Tokyo Foundation’s SYLFF Fellowship, and the European Commission’s EMJMD Fellowship.

He has almost a decade of experience in policy research and has participated in various national and international conferences. Soumya has published multiple papers in peer-reviewed journals and is a regular contributor to digital and print platforms like The Hindu Business Line, Economic and Political Weekly, The Diplomat, Council on Foreign Relations, The Telegraph, Firstpost, Dhaka Tribune, East Asia Forum, Fortune India, The Quint, and India Today, among others.

Sourav Kumar Biswas is a candidate for Masters in Landscape Architecture at Harvard University. He studied architecture at the University of Texas at Austin, with professional and research expe- rience in Doha, Auroville, Dallas, and Mumbai. In Mumbai, he has worked with the BMW Guggenheim Lab as a Program Con- sultant, taught at the Kamla Raheja Vidyanidhi Institute for Ar- chitecture and Environmental Studies (KRVIA) as visiting faculty, and worked as a designer at DIG Architects and Serie Architects.