Dr Bhagya Senaratne

Dr. Bhagya Senaratne is presently serving as a Senior Lecturer in the Department of Strategic Studies at General Sir John Kotelawala Defence University, Sri Lanka. She is currently a Postdoctoral Fellow in Global Asia at the Center for Global Asia, New York University Shanghai, China. Dr Senaratne is the first academic from KDU to pursue a postdoctoral fellowship. Her research at the Center for Global Asia focuses on Sri Lanka’s geopolitical importance and engagement with the Belt and Road Initiative. She researches and teaches on areas related to Foreign Policy Analysis (Sri Lanka, China, U.S.), Diplomacy, Strategic Communications and Maritime Security. She was awarded her Doctor of Philosophy (PhD) from the University of Colombo for her thesis titled An Analysis of Sri Lanka-China Bilateral Relations from 1994 to 2015. She concurrently holds the appointment of the Faculty Public Relations Coordinator. Dr Senaratne has served in several editorial boards such as the Journal of Defence & Policy Analysis published by the Faculty of Defence & Strategic Studies, KDU and the Defence and Security Journal published by the Defence Services Command and Staff College, Sri Lanka of which she was the Editor-in-Chief in 2021. She co-edited Pakistan-Sri Lanka Relations: A Story of Friendship in 2017 with Muhammad Imran. This is the first publication analysing bilateral relations between Sri Lanka and Pakistan. Dr Senaratne is currently co-editing Sri Lanka’s Defence Policy since Independence.