Dr. Prashanth Parameswaran is a Non-Resident Senior Fellow at the Foreign Policy Research Institute. Born and raised in Southeast Asia, he is also a senior columnist at The Diplomat, an advisor at the strategic consultancy BowerGroupAsia, founder of the weekly ASEAN Wonk newsletter, and a course instructor at the State Department and the Pentagon.

Dr. Parameswaran has spent nearly two decades working with businesses, think tanks, governments, and universities in Southeast Asia and the Indo-Pacific region, including early stints with Singapore’s Ministry of Trade and Industry, the Agence France-Presse news wire service agency in Thailand, and the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, DC. He has conducted extensive field research across the Indo-Pacific region, including all 11 countries in Southeast Asia, publishing over 2,000 articles and commentaries in international outlets such as CNN, The Straits Times, Nikkei Asia, South China Morning Post, and Foreign Policy on topics including major power competition, maritime security, economic statecraft, regional institutional development, military modernization, and foreign policy strategy.

Dr. Parameswaran is the author of Mandalas of Multialignment: Hedging Bets in Southeast Asia, Grand Strategy Spheres, Foreign and Security Policy Webs, and Global Geopolitics and Geoeconomics (2026) and Elusive Balances: Shaping US-Southeast Asia Strategy (2022). He holds a PhD and an MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University, and a BA with highest honors from the University of Virginia.