Tharishini is a senior lecturer at the Department of Strategic and Defence Studies, Faculty of Defence Studies and Management, National Defence University Malaysia (NDUM). She did her first degree in International Relations in 2005 and furthered her Master in Strategic and Security Analyses in 2008 at the National University of Malaysia. After joining as an academic staff at NDUM, she went abroad to King’s College London in 2012 to pursue a PhD Degree on Contemporary India Research where she researched on Malaysia-India Maritime Cooperation in the Indian Ocean Region. In 2016- 2017, she was appointed as the fellow of Joint Chair of Derby – NDUM. In 2021, she became an associate member of the Corbett Centre for Maritime Policy Studies at King’s College London. She was 2019 ASEAN-India Youth Summit participant where she was awarded the ASEAN-India Youth Award for Malaysian category. In 2022, she was the Malaysia-Australia Maritime Exchange Fellow with the Australia National University and in 2023, she was a participant with the International Visitor Leadership Program to the United States.

Currently, she is the Head of Strategic and Defence Studies Department, NDUM. She has been an invited speaker at Malaysian Institute of Defence and Security (MIDAS), Indonesia Defence University, and Rajaratnam School of International. Her work has appeared in the News Straits Times, The Star, Diplomat, East Asia Forum, Policy Forum, Asia Maritime Transparency Initiative (AMTI), and RSIS, Singapore. She has written several book chapters and article on the Indo Pacific and is a regular columnist with the Samudera Magazine published by the Sea Power Centre, Malaysia.

Besides NDUM, she also lectures at the Malaysian Armed Forces Staff College (MTAT) and the National Resilience College (NRC) Malaysia.