Dr Tamara Nair is Research Fellow at the Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies (NTS Centre) at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies (RSIS), Nanyang Technological University. She is concurrently appointed as Coordinator of Projects (Women and Children in ASEAN Community) in the Office of the Executive Deputy Chairman, where she supports the management of special projects and activities relating to women and children in the region.

She graduated from the National University of Singapore (NUS) with a Bachelor’s Degree in Political Science and Geography and went on to train at the National Institute of Education (NIE). She obtained a Masters in Environmental Management, a Graduate Diploma in Arts Research and a PhD in Development Studies from the University of New South Wales in Sydney, Australia. She also possesses a Professional Certificate in Project Management by the Institute of Engineers, Singapore and Temasek Polytechnic. She is also the coordinator of centre publications and Research Integrity Officer for RSIS, as well as the Head of the Research Integrity and Data Management Unit of the School.

Dr Nair’s current research focuses on issues of power and the biopolitics of labour and technology, and the Women, Peace and Security (WPS) agenda in the region. She is Singapore’s representative of the ASEAN Women for Peace Registry and is also the representative for Nanyang Technological University for the ASEAN University Network on Human Rights and Peace Education. She has published in Development Studies journals, writing on marginalised communities and sustainable development, issues of gender, and power and subject creation.

• Decentralised Governance in Developing Nations

• Sustainable Development and Issues of Social Justice: Equitable Development in Local Communities

• Climate change, Natural Resource Management and the Role of Women

• Member, Gender and Diversity Research Cluster, College of Humanities and Social Sciences, NTU (2018-present)
• Member, Asia-Pacific Centre for the Responsibility to Protect Working Group on Gender and Atrocity Prevention [WG-GAP], Asia Pacific Centre for Responsibility to Protect. School of Political Science and International Studies, Faculty of Humanities & Social Sciences. The University of Queensland (2018-present)
• Singapore Representative, ASEAN Women for Peace Registry (2018-present)
• Associate Editor, Springer-Nature Journal of Social Sciences (2019-present)
• Gender Consultant, Pacific Forum International. Honolulu, Hawaii, USA. (July 2021-September 2021)
• Singapore Representative, Council for Security Cooperation in the Asia Pacific(CSCAP) study group on Women, Peace and Security agenda (2021-)
• Expert member (course content), ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation Women, Peace and Security training modules for ASEAN senior and mid-level officials (2021-)
• Lecturer, ASEAN Institute for Peace and Reconciliation online lecture series (2021-)

Policy Reports

• Inclusion in AI: Is There a Singapore Model?

  27 March, 2023

• A Native WPS Agenda for ASEAN: Security in Digital Space

  10 February, 2022

• Working Women and Economic Security in Southeast Asia

  14 November, 2019

• Integrating A Disaster Response Architecture In Timor-Leste: Opportunities And Challenges

  22 March, 2018

• Upscaling Disaster Resilience in Southeast Asia — Engaging Women Through the WPS Agenda

  14 March, 2018

• Public Stockpiling of Rice in Asia Pacific

  11 April, 2016

• Public Stockpiling and Food Security

  03 June, 2015

• Investment, Innovation, Integration - Pathways to a Food Secure Asia by 2025

  06 March, 2015

Commentaries

• Digital Security’s Place in Human Security

  29 August, 2023

• AI – An Educator’s Tool

  08 August, 2023

• Climate Security and Role of Women in ASEAN

  04 April, 2023

• Women in AI: Is There a Singapore Model?

  21 February, 2022

• Global Health Security COVID-19 and Its Impacts - Rebuilding Regional Economies: Role of Female Labour

  30 August, 2021

• Global Health Security: COVID-19 and Its Impacts - Pandemic Response: The Women, Peace and Security Agenda

  08 June, 2020

• Global Health Security - COVID-19 and School Closures: Why Education Sector Needs Protecting

  09 April, 2020

• Women in Global Governance: Never Ending Fight for Equality?

  13 March, 2020

• ASEAN Women: AWPR’s Role In Southeast Asian Peace

  24 December, 2018

• CO17157 | Radicalisation of the Female Worker

  31 August, 2017

• CO17021 | Science, Technology and Human Security - 3D Printing: How It Could Disrupt Asia’s Manufacturing Economies

  26 January, 2017

• CO17016 | Science, Technology and Human Security - Fighting Food Wastage: New Ideas From The Past

  18 January, 2017

• CO17017 | Science, Technology and Human Security - Cooling Future Urban Habitats: Technology Based on Human Body?

  18 January, 2017

• CO17002 | Earthquakes and Environmental Refugees: Time for ‘Green’ Engineering

  03 January, 2017

• CO16273 | 3-D Printing for Food Security: Providing The Future Nutritious Meal

  03 November, 2016

• CO16227 | Southeast Asia’s Haze Plight: Is Insurance a Suitable Preventive Mechanism?

  13 September, 2016

• CO16089 | Law and Gender: An Emerging Fault Line in Social Cohesion?

  19 April, 2016

• CO16086 | Securing Singapore: Applying Biopolitics

  15 April, 2016

• CO15278 | Women, Peace and Security in ASEAN: Need For Distinct Action Plan

  23 December, 2015

• CO15246 | New Series on Haze Issue - Transboundary Pollution: Arrival of the Haze Refugee?

  16 November, 2015

• CO15088 | Indonesia’s Foreign Domestic Workers: Dilemma of Not Working Overseas

  10 April, 2015

• CO15019 | A Food Secure Asia by 2025: Addressing Vulnerable Groups

  30 January, 2015

Bulletins and Newsletters

• NTS Bulletin March 2021

  17 March, 2021

• NTS Bulletin March 2020

  24 March, 2020

• NTS Bulletin March 2019

  19 March, 2019

• NTS Bulletin May 2018

  21 May, 2018

• NTS Bulletin March 2018

  20 March, 2018

• NTS Bulletin May 2017

  19 May, 2017

• NTS Bulletin March 2017

  17 March, 2017

Annual Reviews

• RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies Year In Review 2018

  20 December, 2018

• RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies Year In Review 2017

  29 December, 2017

• RSIS Centre for Non-Traditional Security Studies Year In Review 2016

  29 December, 2016

NTS Insight

• Creating Women’s ‘Safe Space’ in Digital Life: Perspectives from Singapore

  30 August, 2023

• Framing Climate Change: The Need for a Human Security Perspective

  10 September, 2021

• COVID-19 and the Impacts on Women

  29 July, 2020

Journal Articles

• “Gender and Economic Security in Southeast Asia” in Asian Journal of Comparative Politics, doi:10.1177/20578911211038284, 2021
• “Human Rights and Peace Education in Singapore” in SHAPE-SEA Remapping and Analysis of Human Rights and Peace & Conflict Education in ASEAN/Southeast Asia. (Bangkok: Shape-SEA/Mahidol University), 2019
• “Power and Cultural Conditioning: Using Field Interviews to Explore “Outliers” in Participatory Development” in Sage Research Methods: Case Studies Part II, 2019
• “Integrating Disaster Governance in Timor-Leste: Opportunities and Challenges” (with Alistair D. B. Cook, Vishalini Suresh, and Yen Ne Foo) in Integrating disaster governance in Timor-Leste: Opportunities and challenges, International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction 35 (2019), , 2019.
• Tamara Nair (2018) Power, Capability and Cultural Subjects: An Inquiry into “Institutional Neglect” in Participatory Planning, Journal of Human Development and Capabilities, 19:3, 331-344, DOI: 10.1080/19452829.2018.1484710
• Nair, Tamara. “Universal basic income could work in Southeast Asia — but only if it goes to women” (The Conversation, 11 July 2017).
• “Can the “Great Wall” Hold Back a Technological “TSUNAMI”?” (with Christopher H. Lim) in All China Review, April-May 2017, -, 2017. pp. 43-46
• Nair, Tamara. “As the US stops funding reproductive health services, China should step in” (The Conversation, 19 April 2017).
• Nair, Tamara. "Decentralization and the cultural politics of natural resource management in Kerala, India." Singapore Journal of Tropical Geography 35, no. 3 (2014): 397-411.
• Nair, Tamara. "The Creation of Cultural Subjects: A Study of Power and Identity through Fieldwork." Oriental Anthropologists 14, no. 1 (2014): 41-57.
• Teng, Paul, Mely Caballero-Anthony, Jonatan Lassa, and Tamara Nair. "Towards Asia 2025: policy and technology imperatives. Summary of the main findings of the second international conference on Asian food security held in Singapore on 21–22 August 2014." Food Security (2015): 1-7.
• Nair, Tamara. “The Rohingyas of Myanmar and the Biopolitics of Hunger”. Journal of Agriculture, Food Systems, and Community Development 5, iss 4 (2015): 1-5.
• Nair, Tamara. “Deepening Divides: Decentralized Development and the ‘Tyranny’ of Participation”. Journal of International Development 28 , iss 8 (2016) : 1323-1336.
• “The Creation of Cultural Subjects: A Study of Power and Identity through Fieldwork” in Oriental Anthropologists , 14, No. 1 , 2014, pp. 41-57

Edited Books / Special Issues

• Citizenship as a Challenge: New and Old Dimensions of an Evolving Process (with Maria Ines Amaro ), Eds. Leiden, Netherlands: Brill, 2021
• Non-Traditional Security in the Asia-Pacific: A Decade of Perspectives (with Alistair D. B. Cook), Eds. Singapore: World Scientific, 2021

Chapters in Edited Books

• “The Women, Peace and Security Agenda in Digital Space” in Gulizar Haciyakupoglu and Yasmine Wong (eds) , Gender and Security in Digital Space: Navigating Access, Harassment, and Disinformation. London, NY: Routledge, 2023, pp. 19-32
• “Democratic Decentralisation and Citizenship – Exploring Caste, Church and Capability in Kerala’s People’s Plan” in Habib Zafarullah and Ahmed Shafiqul Huque (eds) , Handbook on Development Policy. UK and US: Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd, 2021, pp 521-531
• “Human Rights and Peace Education in Singapore” in Kevin Y.L. Tan, David Cohen and Aviva Nababan (eds), Human Rights and ASEAN: Indonesian and International Perspectives. Singapore: World Scientific Publishing Co Pte Ltd, 2021, pp 239-254
• “Gender, Humanitarian Emergencies and Security” in Chantal de Jonge Oudraat and Michael Brown (Eds.), Gender and Security Agenda: Strategies for the 21st Century. US: Routledge, 2020, pp. 176-195
• Tamara Nair, 2018, ‘Climate Change and Food Insecurities: Destabilisers of ASEAN Centrality?’ in Alan Chong (Ed.) International Security in the Asia-Pacific: Transcending ASEAN towards Transitional Polycentrism, Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 307-330.
  
  

Op-Eds

• “Prioritising Women’s Economic Security in Southeast Asia”, AsiaGlobal Online, 23 September 2021
• “Hyper-Surveillance under COVID-19” (with Alan Chong), East Asia Forum, 4 July 2020
• “COVID-19 Collateral Crisis: How the Pandemic Is Triggering a Shortage of Drugs” (with Christopher H. Lim), AsiaGlobal Online, 8 May 2020
• “Human Trafficking and the Use of Social Media” keeping up with the Criminals” (with Foo Yen Ne), Asia Dialogue, 11 January 2019
• “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy: ‘Covert’ Occupations of Southeast Asia’s Women”, Institute of Asia Pacific Studies Centre (IAPS) Dialogue, 30 November 2017
• “Basic ‘Universal’ Income in the Hands of Women – How ‘Pay for No Work’ Can be a Good Thing”, The Conversation, 14 July 2017. Republished in Translated into Chinese in the "Dialogue" on 11 July 2017 and China Social Sciences Network on 14 July, 2017
• “As the US stops funding reproductive health services, China should step in”, The Conversation, 19 April 2017. Republished in Huffington Post (19 April 2017)
• “Mind the Gap: Climate Change, Food Security and Women Farmers of Southeast Asia”, ASIAN GEOGRAPHIC (Special Climate Change Issue) , 20 January 2017
• “How 3D Printing could Disrupt Asia’s Manufacturing Economies” (with Christopher H. Lim), The Conversation, 10 January 2017. Republished in Channel News Asia online http://www.channelnewsasia.com/news/asiapacific/commentary-how-3d-printing-could-disrupt-asia-s-manufacturing/3429894.html
• Why ASEAN’s Disaster Management Strategy must Include Gender