I completed my two-year postdoctoral fellowship at NUS and left Singapore on August 15, 2017.

The second half of my postdoctoral fellowship was an array of writings on Northeast Asia and the Middle East, presentations of my work at different conferences in several different countries – namely, Japan, China, South Korea, the US and the UK – and giving commentaries on the two Koreas – particularly on North Korea. It has been a meaningful experience because now I can combine my training in political economy and security issues and blend them in my research.

For the most part, I have created an academic circle of friends who are interested in Middle East-Northeast Asia (US, Russia) trans regional energy issues, and have projects that are finished or in the running. I also went back to Arabic. I am very grateful for my colleagues at MEI-NUS for this.

I spent time polishing my book proposal – the book proposal has become more in-depth in content and structure than it had been in the first year of my postdoc, which attests to the inevitable truth that you cannot revise your dissertation right after defending it!

Towards the end of my postdoctoral fellowship, I was selected as one of the Asia 21 Young Leaders of the Asia Society for the 2017-18 year. I am hoping to use the platform and wide network of close to 1,000 people across the Asia-Pacific  to bring the two regions of the Middle East (West Asia) and East Asia together. In the meantime, I will be writing and waiting for my next academic step.