Postdoctoral Fellow Julia Macdonald

Julia Macdonald's research lies at the intersection of international security and political psychology and explores the role of psychological variables in explaining state threat assessments, use of force decisions, and US military strategy and effectiveness. Her work has appeared in the Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Strategic Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, and Armed Forces and Society, as well as in various policy outlets. Previously, Julia was a predoctoral fellow at Harvard’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow in the Security Studies Program at MIT. She holds a PhD in political science from the George Washington University, an MA (Hons) in international relations from the University of Chicago, and a BA from the University of Canterbury, New Zealand. During her year at Perry World House, Macdonald worked on turning her dissertation into a book manuscript as well as completing a series of papers on the rise of unmanned weaponry.