Professor Kate Sullivan de Estrada
Kate Sullivan de Estrada completed her PhD in Politics and International Relations from the Australian National University in 2011. Her research interests centre on the social mobility of states in world politics (with a particular focus on status and status seeking and the socialization struggles of rising powers) and, methodologically, the intersection of IR and Area Studies. Empirically, her research examines India's role and identity as a rising power, nuclear politics in South Asia, India's strategy in the Indo-Pacific, and Indian Ocean security.
From March to December 2021, Kate took up a secondment as Principal Research Analyst for India at the UK Foreign, Commonwealth and Development Office. She has also delivered expert testimony to UK parliamentary inquiries and engages across Whitehall and beyond on the UK's policy towards India. From 2018 to 2019, she worked with the Indian Ocean Commission, headquartered in Mauritius, as an Oxford Policy Exchange Network Fellow. She is an Associate Fellow at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, London.
Kate convenes and teaches the MSc/MPhil option the International Relations of South Asia, is the convener of the PPE option Politics in South Asia, and supervises DPhil students in OSGA and the Department of Politics and International Relations. She is currently Director of the Contemporary South Asian Studies Programme, having served in that role previously, from 2018 to 2021. From 2019 to 2021 she was the Academic Lead on OSGA’s successful departmental application to the Athena Swan Bronze Award.
