Dr Kirill Nourzhanov is Associate Professor and Convenor of PhD Studies at the Centre for Arab and Islamic Studies (The Middle East and Central Asia) at the Australian National University. His main research specialisation is on Central Asian politics and international relations, but his interests also cover Islamic radicalism, Eurasian geopolitics, and history of the former USSR.

Dr Nourzhanov has worked as an academic consultant on the World Bank-funded projects in Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan, and has served as Associate Editor of the Asian Politics and Policy journal. In addition to this, he has been a member of the executive of the Australian Society for Inner Asian Studies; he was the President of the Australasian Association for Communist and Post-communist Studies twice. Dr Nourzhanov’s research has previously been awarded funding by the Australian Research Council.

Dr Nourzhanov’s books include The Afghanistan Security Threat: Security Dilemmas for Central Asia and Beyond (with Amin Saikal, Bloomsbury, 2021) and Soft Power in Central Asia: The Politics of Influence and Seduction (with Sebastien Peyrouse, Rowman &Littlefield, 2021).