Dr Athaulla (“Atho”) Rasheed is a former foreign service officer and diplomat at the Maldives Ministry of Foreign Affairs and holds a PhD in political science from the University of Queensland in Australia and is a former senior lecturer in political science and international relations at the Maldives National University. Athaulla is currently undertaking a doctoral research project in the Department of Pacific Affairs at Australian National University (ANU). His research at ANU focuses on understanding wider definitions of security via the lens of climate security in small island developing states and their engagement in the UN Security Council debates. He develops a framework to explain small states’ impact on global and regional security agenda, with a particular emphasis on the agency of small states in the Indo-Pacific.