Programme Coordinator:

Kishore Mahbubani is currently a Distinguished Fellow at the Asia Research Institute, National University of Singapore. Mr. Mahbubani has dedicated five decades of his life to public service. He is also a former President of the UN Security Council (Jan 2001, May 2002) and the Founding Dean of the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy (2004-2017). Mr. Mahbubani writes and speaks prolifically on the rise of Asia, geopolitics and global governance. His books and articles in the New York Times, Washington Post, Financial Times and Foreign Affairs have earned him global recognition as “The muse of the Asian century.” He was inducted into the American Academy of Arts and Sciences in October 2019. His latest books include Has China Won?, released in March 2020, and The Asian 21st Century, an open access book which has been downloaded over 2 million times since its release in January 2022.

 

 

Project Team:

Tan York Chor (Senior Affiliated Fellow) has had a long and distinguished diplomatic career, during which he was Singapore’s Permanent Representative to the United Nations and Other International Organisations in Geneva and to the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna, as well Singapore’s Ambassador to France and Portugal.

 

 

 

 

Varigonda Kesava Chandra (Administrative Director) has completed his Doctoral research at the South Asian Studies Programme, National University of Singapore in March 2020. He is currently Postdoctoral Research Fellow at ARI. Kesava works with Distinguished Fellow, Prof. Kishore Mahbubani, on a range of projects related to global geopolitics and the prospect for peace in Asia. Kesava’s primary research interests include state-society relations, South Asian studies, geopolitics, and energy studies.

 

 

 

 

Kristen Tang Tse Mei (Research Associate – Publications) has an M.A. in Literary Studies and a B.S.S. (Hons.) in Psychology from the National University of Singapore. She is currently a Research Associate at ARI. Kristen works with Distinguished Fellow, Kishore Mahbubani on research and writing relating to regional and global politics, public policy and global governance. Her research interest is in the role of critical theory in shaping public policy, with a focus on the intersections between feminism, queer theory and mental health.

 

 

 

 

Fanny Chang (Assistant Manager) serves as Personal Assistant to Distinguished Fellow, Prof Kishore Mahbubani. She holds a Bachelor of Social Sciences (Hons.) in Political Science from the National University of Singapore and a Diploma in English-Chinese translation from the Singapore University of Social Sciences. At ARI, she provides support for Distinguished Fellow Prof Mahbubani and the APP team and is involved in ad-hoc project administration.

 

 

 

 

---

Former Members(s):

Bertrand Seah Ming Yan was Research Assistant at ARI from 2020 to 2022.Through a partnership between the Asian Peace Programme and the United World College (SEA), he was selected as the UWCSEA-APP Peace Fellow (2021-2022). Bertrand is a graduate in Political Science from the National University of Singapore. For his undergraduate research, he focused on environmentalism and state-society relations in Singapore through a Gramscian lens.

Benjamin Khoo Jun Qi was a Research Associate (Communications) at ARI from 2022 to 2024. He holds an M.A. (cum laude) in Colonial and Global History from Leiden University, and a B.A. (Hons.) in History and European Studies from the National University of Singapore. At ARI, he highlighted the research of ARI researchers through ARI’s communication channels. 

Carol Chan was Manager and Personal Assistant to Distinguished Fellow and had been serving as a Personal Assistant to Prof Kishore Mahbubani since 2006 to 2024. She was previously a Manager in the Dean’s Office at the Lee Kuan Yew School of Public Policy until December 2017. At ARI, she provided support for Distinguished Fellow Prof Mahbubani and the APP team and was also involved in ad-hoc project administration.