Meet Our Team
Lab Director
Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro
Oriana Mastro is a Center Fellow at the Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies and Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University where her research focuses on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. She is also a nonresident scholar, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a member of the Council on Foreign Relations. She was previously an assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown University.
Mastro continues to serve in the United States Air Force Reserve for which she currently works at the Pentagon as Deputy Chief of Reserve China Global Strategy. For her contributions to U.S. strategy in Asia, she won the Individual Reservist of the Year Award in 2016 and 2022 (FGO). She has published widely, including in International Security, Security Studies, Foreign Affairs, Journal of Strategic Studies, The Washington Quarterly, the Economist and the New York Times. Her most recent book, Upstart: How China Became a Great Power (Oxford University Press, 2024), evaluates China’s approach to competition. Her book, The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, (Cornell University Press, 2019), won the 2020 American Political Science Association International Security Section Best Book by an Untenured Faculty Member. She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. and Ph.D. in Politics from Princeton University.
Lead Research Assistant
Annabel Richter
Annabel works as the lead research assistant to Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro, supporting her research on Chinese military and security policy, Asia-Pacific security issues, war termination, and coercive diplomacy. Before joining CISAC, she worked as a Research Associate for Southeast Asia and South Asia at the Council on Foreign Relations, focusing on regional dynamics amid U.S.-China great power competition. Previously, she also served as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace’s South Asia Program, contributing to research on the trajectory of the U.S.-India relationship and security competition in the Indian Ocean. Annabel holds a B.A. in Global Studies from the College of William & Mary with a concentration in East Asian Studies and a minor in Data Science.
Research Assistants
Research assistants are from Stanford, Princeton, Yale, Indiana University, UC Berkeley, Michigan, and Sapienza University. They have been partially supported through Stanford's China Fund, Japan Fund and its Political Science Summer Research College.
Caleb Bello
Caleb is a junior at Princeton University majoring in Politics with minors in East Asian Studies (EAS) and History and the Practice of Diplomacy (HPD). His academic interests include East Asian geopolitics and classical Chinese literature. He is an undergraduate fellow for the Center on International Security Studies at Princeton.
Christina Cheng
Christina is a senior at Stanford University majoring in History, minoring in East Asian Studies and coterming in Computer Science on the Computer and Network Security track. She has worked at the China Studies Centre at Riga Stradins University in Riga, Latvia and the Cyber Statecraft Initiative at the Atlantic Council in Washington DC.
Hunter Musi
Hunter graduated with a MA in Communications and Media Studies from Stanford University in January 2026 and a BA in International Relations with a minor in Spanish from Stanford in June 2024. His research interests include China, supply-chain security, and defense acquisitions.
Tianren Li
Tianren (Tina) Li is a junior majoring in International Relations and minoring in history at Stanford. She has been working with Prof. Mastro since her sophomore year and is interested in studying international history and culture. At Stanford she is the Co-Editor in Chief of Stanford Journal of International Affairs and a member of different pre-law society clubs. She enjoys photography and live music in her free time!
Quincy Stone
Quincy is a junior at Stanford University majoring in International Relations, with a concentration in International Security and Economic Development and a minor in Psychology. Her research focuses on China’s rise and its implications for U.S. global influence, as well as China-Russia strategic alignment and its impact on global power dynamics. Quincy is Co-Captain of the Stanford Women's Rowing Team.
Jacob Yuryev
Jacob Yuryev is a Stanford undergraduate studying economics and computer science and a student researcher at the Center for International Security and Cooperation. His research interests include international security, emerging technology, great-power competition, and economic statecraft. Outside, he enjoys racket sports, backcountry skiing, and exploring the history of technology.