Shanthi Kalathil is a consultant, adviser, and speaker on international development, good governance, independent media development, and the role of technology in international affairs. She is co-author of Open Networks, Closed Regimes: The Impact of the Internet on Authoritarian Rule, a widely cited work that examined the Internet and political transition in eight authoritarian contexts. Kalathil has extensive experience advising the U.S. government, international organizations, and nonprofits on the policy and programmatic aspects of supporting civil society, independent media, technology, transparency, and accountability. Her recent work has focused on evaluating the effectiveness of global good governance programs, analyzing the state of the technology and transparency field, and monitoring and evaluation in politically challenging environments.
Previously a Senior Democracy Fellow and Senior Media Adviser at the U.S. Agency for International Development and a regular consultant for the World Bank, the Aspen Institute and others, she has authored or edited numerous policy and scholarly publications, including the edited volume Diplomacy, Development and Security in the Information Age (Georgetown University, Institute for the Study of Diplomacy), and Developing Independent Media as an Institution of Accountable Governance (The World Bank). A former Hong Kong-based staff reporter for The Wall Street Journal Asia, Kalathil is a member of the Advisory Board to the National Endowment for Democracy's Center for International Media Assistance. She also lectures on international relations in the information age at Georgetown University. Kalathil holds degrees from U.C. Berkeley and the London School of Economics and Political Science, and is fluent in Mandarin.