Alessio Patalano is Professor of War & Strategy in East Asia at the Department of War Studies (DWS), and Co-Director of the Centre for Grand Strategy (CGS) at King’s College London (KCL). He specialises in maritime strategy and doctrine, Japanese military history and strategy, East Asian security, and British defence and foreign policy towards the Indo-Pacific. He is a Fellow of the Royal Historical Society (FRHistS), a Senior Fellow at Policy Exchange, the Royal United Services Institute (RUSI), and is Sir Herbert Richmond Fellow on naval strategy at the Council on Geostrategy. He is also visiting fellow at the Royal Navy Strategic Studies Centre (RNCSS) and non-resident fellow at the Royal Australian Navy Seapower Centre. In 2022, Prof Patalano became the first specialist advisor on the Indo-Pacific to the Foreign Affairs Committee in the UK Parliament. In 2023, he became also the first academic to be awarded a Commendation of the Ambassador of Japan to the UK for his outstanding contribution to the advancement of UK-Japan ties in defence and security.