Dr Ashok Sharma is a Visiting Fellow at the University of New South Wales’ Australian Defence Force Academy, an Academic Fellow at the University of Melbourne’s Australia-India Institute and an Adjunct Associate Professor at the University of Canberra’s Faculty of Business, Government and Law. He is also head of the South Asia Strategic, State Fragile and Security Program, and joint head of Indo-Pacific Strategic Issues and Major Powers Studies at the University of Canberra’s National Asian Security Studies Centre.    

Recently, Dr Sharma held the positions of Visiting Fellow at the Australian National University’s Strategic & Defence Studies Centre, and Deputy Chair of the Auckland Branch of the New Zealand Institute of International Affairs (NZIIA).

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, Faculty at the University of Auckland, a Visiting Academic at the University of Waikato, and an Endeavour Post-Doctoral Fellow on Quad Security Dialogue at the ANU 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 (Foreign and National Security Policy) 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 think tanks, namely Observer Research Foundation, Centre for Air Power Studies and Centre for Land Warfare.

Dr Sharma has almost 20 years of research, teaching, and policy analysis experience in International Relations, Global Security and Indo-Pacific strategic issues with a focus on the US–India–China great power politics and India’s foreign, defence, nuclear, and energy policy. Dr Sharma is an astute observer of India-US relations and is one of the leading experts on India’s global positioning, notably on India's growing strategic ties with the US and Australia, and the Quad in the emerging strategic geometry in the Indo-Pacific.

Ashok is the author of India’s Pursuit of Energy Security: Domestic Measures, Foreign Policy and Geopolitics (2019) and Indian Lobbying and its Influence in US Decision Making: Post-Cold War (2017). Dr Sharma frequently participates in guest lectures, seminars, conferences, presentations, interviews to digital and print media, and authors articles for popular outlets including, but not limited to, Australian Outlook, The Conversation and The Times of India under the blog name “Ashok’s Statecraft”.