Oriana Skylar Mastro

Oriana Skylar Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and a Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University. Her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security dynamics, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a Nonresident Scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations.

Previously, Mastro was an Assistant Professor of Security Studies at Georgetown University. Her work has appeared in a wide range of publications, including Foreign Affairs, The Economist, The Washington Quarterly, The New York Times, and The Wall Street Journal, as well as leading academic journals such as International Security, Security Studies, and the Journal of Strategic Studies.

Her most recent book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power, explores China’s approach to strategic competition. Her earlier book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, received the 2020 Best Book Award from the American Political Science Association’s International Security Section. She is currently authoring a new book examining the drivers and evolution of the Sino-Russian military relationship.

In addition to her academic and policy work, Mastro serves in the United States Air Force Reserve. Over the past fifteen years, she has held strategic roles at the Pentagon, Pacific Air Forces, and Indo-Pacific Command. She currently serves at the Pentagon as Deputy Director of Reserve China Global Strategy. For her contributions to US strategy in Asia, she was recognised as the Individual Reservist of the Year in both 2016 (CGO) and 2022 (FGO).

Mastro holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.