IN Nam-sik is a professor at the Korea National Diplomatic Academy of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Korea and serves as Director of the Department of Strategic Region Studies. He specializes in Middle Eastern geopolitics and U.S.–Middle East relations, while also training career diplomats. He previously served as an advisory member to the National Security Office of the Office of the President, and currently serves as a foreign and security affairs advisor to the Prime Minister and the Minister of National Defense, as well as a board member of the East Asia Foundation. He has been a visiting scholar at the Institute for Middle Eastern & Islamic Studies at Durham University in the United Kingdom, the Truman Institute at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem in Israel, and the Department of Political Science and International Relations at Boğaziçi University in Türkiye. He is the author of numerous books and articles, including the recently published Understanding the Contemporary Middle East (2026).