Bio
Dr. Sukanya Podder is an Associate Professor in Defence and Security at the Defence Studies Department, King’s College London. Before joining the Defence Studies Department she was a Lecturer in International Security and Development at the Centre for International Security and Resilience at Cranfield University. She has taught defense engagement, security sector reform, international interventions for peace and statebuilding, and regional security theories. Her primary areas of research are post-conflict reconstruction (DDR/SSR), civil wars, and youth in peacebuilding.
Her contemporary research on non-state armed groups based on fieldwork in Liberia, Sierra Leone, South Sudan, and Mindanao, Philippines, has explained how the nature of armed groups, their recruitment strategies, and their access to different types of resources shape the socio-political legitimacy of armed actors, including the prospect of successful ex-combatant reintegration, and security sector reform.