Cmde. Roby Thomas joined MP-IDSA as Senior Fellow in August 2019. An alumni of the first three year Naval Academy Course and Naval War College, he has held a wide ambit of operational tenures on different classes of ships. He has also held Director level appointments at the Naval Headquarters, Headquarters-Integrated Defence Staff and the Strategic Forces Command. He was Commodore, Foreign Cooperation II at the Naval Headquarters prior to joining MP-IDSA.

The officer has specialised in Anti-Submarine Warfare and is a qualified Ships Diver. He is also an External Pilot Instructor on Remotely Piloted Aircraft (RPA), of which he was part of the team that inducted RPAs into the Indian Navy. His current interests are in naval diplomacy including capacity building and capability enhancement of IOR littorals.