Kumar Ramakrishna is Associate Professor and Head of the Centre of Excellence for National Security (CENS) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Singapore. He was Head (Studies) of the School from 2003-2006.  He obtained a First Class (Honors) in Political Science from the National University of Singapore in 1989 and a Masters in Defence Studies from the University of New South Wales in 1992. He went on to secure his PhD in History from Royal Holloway and Bedford New College, University of London, in 1999. His current research interests include British propaganda in the Malayan Emergency; propaganda theory and practice; history of strategic thought; and counter-terrorism with a focus on radicalization. He was an Asia Foundation (US) Freeman Fellow in June 2002 and a Visiting Research Fellow at the Institute for National Strategic Studies, National Defense University, Washington, D.C., from April to June 2003. He was also an Australian Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade (DFAT) Special Visitor in March 2003. In 2008 he was appointed as a Senior Advisor to the Trusted Information Network on Extremism and Transnational Crime in Southeast Asia and Australia, a joint project of The Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington D.C., and The Lowy Institute for International Policy in Sydney, Australia.

Ramakrishna has been a frequent speaker on counter-terrorism before local and international audiences, a regular media commentator on the issue – most recently on the Mas Selamat Kastari affair - and published in numerous internationally refereed journals. He has co-edited two well-received books on counter-terrorism, The New Terrorism: Anatomy, Trends and Counter-Strategies (2002) as well as After Bali:The Threat of Terrorism in Southeast Asia (2004). His major book, Emergency Propaganda: The Winning of Malayan Hearts and Minds, 1948-1958, (2002) was described by the International History Review as “required reading for historians of Malaya, and for those whose task is to counter insurgents, guerrillas, and terrorists”.  His edited volume, Freedom News: The Untold Story of the Communist Underground Publication, was published by RSIS, with the co-operation of the Singapore Ministry of Home Affairs, in 2008. His most recent book, Radical Pathways: Understanding Muslim Radicalization in Indonesia (2009) was identified by Choice in October 2009 as a “recommended” reading.

He is a member of the Singapore Government Parliamentary Committee (GPC) Resource Panel on Home Affairs and Law; member of the Board of Trustees, the Institute of Southeast Asian Studies in Singapore, member of the Board of Governors of the Islamic Religious Council of Singapore (MUIS) Academy, and Executive Committee Member of the Political Science Association (Singapore).  Most recently he was inducted into the Executive Board of the Council for Asian Transnational Threats Research, a US-led, 12-country network of think tanks and research institutions engaged in terrorism and transnational threats research.