Stanford University

Security

FSI scholars produce research aimed at creating a safer world and examing the consequences of security policies on institutions and society. They look at longstanding issues including nuclear nonproliferation and the conflicts between countries like North and South Korea. But their research also examines new and emerging areas that transcend traditional borders – the drug war in Mexico and expanding terrorism networks. FSI researchers look at the changing methods of warfare with a focus on biosecurity and nuclear risk. They tackle cybersecurity with an eye toward privacy concerns and explore the implications of new actors like hackers.

Along with the changing face of conflict, terrorism and crime, FSI researchers study food security. They tackle the global problems of hunger, poverty and environmental degradation by generating knowledge and policy-relevant solutions. 

Sanne Verschuren

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Sanne Cornelia J. Verschuren is an Assistant Professor of International Security at the Pardee School of Global Studies of Boston University. Her research interests lie at the intersection of international relations, the domestic determinants of security policy, and the role of ideas, norms, and institutions in national security decision-making. She focuses on how states fight war, examining why they construct novel weapon technologies, how they envision fielding such technologies, and why they choose to abandon certain technologies and practices.

Professor Verschuren is in the process of finalizing her first book manuscript, titled "Imagining the Unimaginable: War, Weapons, and Procurement Politics." This book is based on her dissertation, which received APSA’s 2022 Kenneth N. Waltz Outstanding Dissertation Award. In the book, she asks why and how states decide to develop different weapon capabilities within a similar military domain—with the development of missile defenses by the United States, the United Kingdom, France, and India as the central case studies. Other research by Professor Verschuren has appeared in Global Studies Quarterly, War on the Rocks, and Inkstick Media, among others.

Before joining Boston University, Professor Verschuren was a Marie Sklodowska-Curie Postdoctoral Fellow at Sciences Po’s Center for International Studies, a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation, and a predoctoral research fellow with the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs.

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Melissa Salm

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Dr. Melissa Salm earned her Ph.D. in Sociocultural Anthropology with an emphasis in science and technology studies from UC Davis. In support of her thesis, Dr. Salm conducted multi-sited fieldwork across Peru, examining how the 'One Health' model was incorporated into epidemiological field investigations of zoonoses and integrated into global health governance tools for systematizing global health security capacities across the Americas. Her research was funded by the NIH-FIC, for which she conducted a qualitative study identifying the definitions, practices, and visions of 'global health' among PI's in Latin America and the Caribbean compared to those of PI's in North America.

In her research, Dr. Salm examines conceptualizations and operationalizations of risk in the biosciences and biosecurity management. Her guiding questions are: in what concrete ways do controversial techniques for predicting viral risks, such as GOF/PPP, translate into effective pandemic preparedness and response measures? What tools must be invented and standardized to facilitate coordinated institutional responses to public health threats and to move pro-actively from a state of preparedness to response?

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J. Luis Rodriguez

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J. Luis Rodriguez is an assistant professor of international security and law at George Mason University’s Schar School for Policy and Government. He studies the security preferences and strategies of the Global South, comparing how developing countries design norms of humanitarian intervention, nuclear nonproliferation and disarmament mechanisms, and regulations on emerging technologies. My first book manuscript examines why Latin American countries, traditionally wary of great power interference, shifted their stance on interventions and endorsed a norm that legitimized the use of military force to protect populations.

Dr. Rodriguez is an adjunct non-resident fellow at the Program on Nuclear Issues at the Center for Strategic and International Studies and an affiliate of Stanford University’s Center for International Security and Cooperation. His publications include pieces in International Affairs, Third World Quarterly, The Bulletin of Atomic Scientists, and The Washington Post. He holds a Ph.D. and an M.A. in Political Science from Johns Hopkins University and a B.A. in International Relations from El Colegio de Mexico. Before his academic career, he served as a junior advisor to the Mexican Vice-Minister for Latin American Affairs.

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Sigrid Lupieri

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Dr. Sigrid Lupieri received her Ph.D. in Politics and International Studies and an MPhil in Modern European History from the University of Cambridge. She also holds an M.S. in Journalism from Northwestern University. Her research examines how security concerns, foreign policy agendas, and diplomacy shape the priorities of refugee responses, with a particular focus on health. Her forthcoming book, Disease and Diplomacy: The Weaponization of Medical Aid in Jordan (University of Michigan Press, 2026), shows how governments leverage refugee health needs for political and diplomatic gain. Her research has appeared in journals including Third World Quarterly, Social Science & Medicine, and Forced Migration Review. In other projects, Dr. Lupieri explores the impact of refugee movements on host-country healthcare systems and the broader effects of international aid on refugee welfare. At Stanford University, she has taught undergraduate seminars on war, humanitarianism, and global politics. She has also worked as a journalist in Armenia, Georgia, and Germany, and as a UN officer in New York and New Delhi.

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Debak Das

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Debak Das is an Assistant Professor at the Josef Korbel School of Global and Public Affairs at the University of Denver. His research is at the intersection of international security, nuclear proliferation, crises, and international history. Specifically, his work focuses on the politics of nuclear delivery systems and the global nuclear order. Debak’s research and writing have been published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, Global Studies Quarterly, H-Diplo Robert Jervis International Security Studies Forum, International Studies Review, Lawfare, Political Science Quarterly, Research and Politics, Security Studies, Texas National Security Review, The Washington Post, and War on the Rocks. Debak is also a Director at the Bridging the Gap program that seeks to promote engagement between the scholarly, policy and public spheres. He earned his PhD in Government from Cornell University in 2021. Debak was the MacArthur Nuclear Security Pre-Doctoral Fellow in 2019-2020, and a Stanton Nuclear Security Post-Doctoral Fellow in 2021-2022, at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University. He holds an M.Phil in Diplomacy and Disarmament, and an M.A. in Politics (specializing in International Relations) from the Jawaharlal Nehru University, New Delhi. Debak is also an affiliate at CISAC at Stanford University, the Centre de Recherche Internationales (CERI) at Sciences Po, Paris, and at the Council for Strategic and Defense Research, New Delhi. 

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Lauren Sukin

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Lauren Sukin is the John G. Winant Associate Professor in U.S. Foreign Policy in the Department of Politics and International Relations at the University of Oxford as well as a Professorial Fellow at Nuffield College at the University of Oxford. She is an Affiliate at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC), a Nonresident Scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program (NPP) at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace (CEIP), a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Statecraft & National Security (CSNS) at King's College London, and a Fellow at Charles University's Peace Research Centre Prague (PRCP). She holds a Ph.D. and M.A. from the Department of Political Science at Stanford University and A.B.s from the Departments of Political Science and Literary Arts at Brown University. Lauren was a Pre-Doctoral Fellow and a MacArthur Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation during the 2021-2022 academic year.

Lauren’s research examines issues of international security, focusing primarily on the role of nuclear weapons in international politics. Her research leverages multi-method approaches, including survey experiments, case studies, causal analysis, and machine learning. Lauren’s book project examines the effects of credibility in the context of U.S. extended deterrence, arguing that highly credible nuclear security guarantees can backfire. Her work has appeared in publications such as Journal of Conflict Resolution, Security Studies, and International Studies Quarterly as well as in media outlets such as Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and War on the Rocks. 

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Frederick R. Chen

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Frederick R. Chen is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Political Science at The Ohio State University.

His research explores the intersection of economics and security in international relations, with a particular focus on the domestic political mechanisms that shape these dynamics. He examines two interconnected themes: (1) the political economy of international security, which investigates how domestic and global economic forces influence international conflict and foreign policy; (2) the role of domestic institutions in shaping international economic cooperation, including trade, foreign direct investment, and corporate behavior. His projects span multiple substantive areas, such as political economy, international security, foreign policy, and public opinion.

Chen’s work has appeared or is forthcoming in journals including International Organization, the Journal of Politics, World Politics, and the Review of International Organizations. He received the David A. Lake Best Paper Award from the International Political Economy Society in 2020 and the Genevieve Gorst Herfurth Award for outstanding doctoral student research from across all disciplines in the social sciences at the University of Wisconsin–Madison in 2019–20. His research has been supported by the Ministry of Education, Singapore.

Chen holds a Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Wisconsin–Madison (2022), an M.A. in International Relations from Peking University (2016), and a B.A. in International Politics from Tsinghua University (2013). Prior to joining Ohio State, he was an assistant professor at the S. Rajaratnam School of International Studies at Nanyang Technological University, Singapore, and a pre-doctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University.

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James X. Dempsey

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Jim Dempsey is senior policy advisor to the Stanford Program on Geopolitics, Technology and Governance and a lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law, where he teaches a course on cybersecurity law in the LLM program. Until May 2021, Jim was Executive Director of the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. In 2012, after Senate confirmation, he was appointed by President Barack Obama as a part-time member of the U.S. Privacy and Civil Liberties Oversight Board, an independent agency within the federal government charged with advising senior policymakers and overseeing the nation’s counterterrorism programs. He served in that position until January 2017, while also running BCLT.

From 1997 to 2014, Dempsey was at the Center for Democracy & Technology (CDT), a non-profit public policy organization focused on privacy and other issues affecting the internet, where he held a number of leadership positions. Prior to that he was deputy director of the Center for National Security Studies (1995-1997) and assistant counsel to the House Judiciary Committee (1985-1995), focusing on privacy, FBI oversight, and surveillance issues. 

Jim graduated from Yale College and Harvard Law School.

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Senior Policy Advisor, Geopolitics, Technology, and Governance at CISAC
Lecturer at the UC Berkeley School of Law
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APSIA Online Graduate School Fair

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Please join our partners at APSIA for their 2021 online grad school fair. Representatives from across the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and other top-line graduate programs in international studies at leading universities will be online to answer your questions and provide resources on the application process.

Whether you are an undergrad student trying to decide what comes next in your academic journey or a professional looking to advance your career, this is an excellent opportunity to network and gain insight into reaching your goals.

Register: https://bit.ly/apsiafair2

Workshops

The Precarious State of Cross-Strait Deterrence

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Cross-strait deterrence is arguably weaker today than at any point since the Korean War. Impressive Chinese military modernization, U.S. failure to build robust coalitions to counter Chinese regional aggression, and Xi Jinping’s personal ambition, all coalesce to create a situation in which Chinese leaders may see some aggregate benefit to using force. Mastro supports this assessment in her response to the Commission’s specific questions. 

Oriana Skylar Mastro Testifies on Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan to Congressional Review Commission

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Deterrence and Defense Across the Taiwan Strait

Oriana Skylar Mastro's research project analyzes the political and strategic dynamics underpinning deterrence in the Taiwan strait region.
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Statement before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on “Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan”
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Oriana Skylar Mastro
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