Recent Honors
US Department of State Group Superior Honor Award for work on the US-India civil nuclear agreement, 2009 • Tremezzo Transatlantic Young Leaders, 2008 • Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs Fellow, 2007-08 • Marshall Memorial Fellow, 2006
Dr. Alyssa Ayres is a strategic advisor, author, and analyst of South Asia. Trained as a cultural historian, she has experience in the nonprofit, government, and private sectors, and has carried out research in both India and Pakistan. She writes for scholarly as well as general audiences.
As an advisor, Dr. Ayres leads the India & South Asia practice at McLarty Associates, the Washington-based international strategic advisory firm. She joined the firm in 2008 after serving in the US Department of State as special assistant to the Under Secretary for Political Affairs. Previously, she worked in the nonprofit sector at the Center for the Advanced Study of India at the University of Pennsylvania, and prior to that at the Asia Society in New York.
Dr. Ayres’s book on nationalism, culture, and politics in Pakistan, Speaking Like a State, was published worldwide by Cambridge University Press in 2009, with a special South Asian edition published by Cambridge University Press India. In addition, she has co-edited three books, including the recently published Power Realignments in Asia (Sage 2009), India Briefing: Takeoff at Last? and India Briefing: Quickening the Pace of Change (ME Sharpe 2002 and 2005). She has written for a non-specialist readership in, among others, The Wall Street Journal, Current History, World Policy Journal, Forbes.com and YaleGlobal.
Dr. Ayres has been awarded numerous fellowships, including the Council on Foreign Relations International Affairs fellowship, the Fulbright-Hays doctoral dissertation award, the Franke Institute for the Humanities dissertation award, and the Marshall Memorial Fellowship. She speaks fluent Hindi and Urdu, and in the mid-1990s worked as an interpreter for the International Committee of the Red Cross in Jammu and Kashmir. She received an AB magna cum laude from Harvard College, and an MA and PhD from the University of Chicago, where her dissertation was defended with distinction. She is a contributing editor of India Review, a member of the Council on Foreign Relations, and a member of the International Institute for Strategic Studies.