Ashok Swain (born 19 February 1965) is an Indian-born academic and professor of peace and conflict research at the Department of Peace and Conflict Research, Uppsala University. In 2017, he was appointed as the UNESCO Chair of International Water Cooperation and became the first UNESCO Chair of Uppsala University. Swain received his PhD in 1991 from the School of International Studies of Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi, India. Ashok Swain has been a Mac Arthur Fellow at the University of Chicago, visiting fellow at UN Research Institute for Social Development, Geneva; and visiting professor at University Witwatersrand, University of Science, Malaysia, University of British Columbia, University of Maryland, Stanford University, McGill University, Tufts University and University of Natural Sciences and Life Sciences, Vienna. He has written extensively on new security challenges, water sharing issues, environment, conflict and peace, and democratic development issues. He has published 20 books, more than 100 journal articles, and book chapters. Swain has worked as a policy consultant on the environment, water, development and migration issues for various UN agencies and Governments of Sweden, Netherlands, UK, and Singapore. He also writes and comments frequently on South Asian Politics and Religious Fundamentalism.