Itty Abraham

Professor Itty Abraham moved to the School for the Future of Innovation in Society at Arizona State University in July 2022.  Prior to that, he was Head of the Department of Southeast Asian Studies at the National University of Singapore (NUS). 

Itty received a first-class bachelor’s degree in economics from Loyola College, Madras (Chennai), and PhD in international relations and political theory from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign.  After his PhD, he was appointed program office for South Asia and Southeast Asia at the Social Science Research Council, New York.  After completing a postdoctoral fellowship at the Center for International Security and Arms Control at Stanford University, he went on to become co-director of the SSRC Program in Global Cooperation and Security.  He left the Council to become a research fellow at the East-West Center in Washington DC and taught at the Elliot School of International Affairs at George Washington University.  In 2006, he moved to the University of Texas at Austin to become director of the South Asia Institute, with a tenured appointment in Government and Asian Studies.  He moved from Austin to NUS in 2012. 

His expertise joins international relations and science and technology studies, with a special interest in nuclear studies.  He has written two single authored scholarly books and edited and co-edited three volumes and two journal collections.  Other published works include studies of the impact of digital technologies on postcolonial citizenship, refugee studies, and Indian foreign policy.  He has received grants from the National Science Foundation, US Institute of Peace, and the Ford and MacArthur Foundations, among others, and was a senior Fulbright-Nehru scholar in 2011.  He has served on numerous international advisory committees, including university centers and journal editorial boards.  He is a firm believer in the power of engaged scholarship to change the way we understand the world, and to be a force for progressive change. 

For more information about his published work see his academia.edu page.  https://asu.academia.edu/IttyAbraham