Akriti (Vasudeva) Kalyankar is a Fellow with the South Asia Program at the Stimson Center, with over 10 years experience working across think-tanks and media in the United States and India. Her research focuses on U.S.-China-India strategic dynamics, geopolitics of Southern Asia and the Indo-Pacific, U.S.-India defense and strategic cooperation, and Indian foreign policy. Her latest publication is a chapter titled “Competition and Coalitions: The United States, Quad Plus and the Chinese Challenge in the Indo-Pacific” in Jagannath Panda and Ernest Gunasekara-Rockwell (eds.)’s Quad Plus and Indo-Pacific: The Changing Profile of International Relations (Routledge, 2021).
Her analysis has appeared on or been cited in Bloomberg, BBC, Foreign Policy, Nikkei Asia, NPR, The Washington Post, The Diplomat and War on the Rocks, among others. She is Editor-at-large of South Asian Voices, an online magazine featuring strategic analysis and commentary on the security, politics, and economics of the subcontinent. She also serves as an Adjunct Lecturer in the School of Professional and Area Studies at the U.S. Foreign Service Institute. She is the co-chair of Stimson Center’s DE&I Committee, an all-volunteer group that promotes and fosters diversity, equity and inclusion at Stimson, in our community, and in the field of international security.
Previously, she worked as a reporter for two of the largest English-language dailies in India, The Indian Express and Hindustan Times. She has also held research positions at the Embassy of India in Washington, D.C. and the Manohar Parrikar-Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses in New Delhi, among others. She is a native Hindi speaker and has elementary proficiency in Urdu and Marathi. She holds an M.A. in Asian Studies from the Elliott School of International Affairs, George Washington University and a bachelor’s degree in information technology engineering from the University of Mumbai.
Recent Podcast Appearances
- September 15 – Wajahat S Khan and Monica Hunter-Hart, Asia’s Balancing Act with Russia, Asia Stream, Nikkei Asia
- August 4 – Hayley Channer, What’s India Thinking and How’s it Relating to its Region?, 15 Minutes in Washington, DC, Perth USAsia Centre
- May 27, 2022 – Michael Willis, The Evolution of the Quad Amid the War in Ukraine, Asia Insight, National Bureau of Asian Research
