Oriana Skylar Mastro is an American political scientist currently serving as a Courtesy Assistant Professor of Political Science at Stanford University and Center Fellow (tenure-track) at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and continues to serve in the US Air Force Reserve as a strategic planner at the US Indo-Pacific Command.
Mastro's research focuses on the Chinese military, Asia-Pacific security, war termination, and coercive diplomacy.
Education
Mastro earned a BA in East Asian Studies with honors in International Security from Stanford University in 2006 and a MA (2009) and PhD (2013) in politics from Princeton University.
Military service and academic career
From 2006 to 2007, Mastro was selected as a junior fellow for the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace's China program. In 2008, she was part of the summer associate program at the RAND Corporation.
In 2008, while a doctoral student at Princeton, Mastro met with then deputy commander of the then U.S. Pacific Command (now U.S. Indo-Pacific Command, USINDOPACOM) Lt. Gen. Dan P. Leaf at a conference where she was invited to present research she and her colleagues at Carnegie's China program conducted earlier about the "military balance of power across the Taiwan Strait." Leaf suggested that she enlist into the U.S. military after learning about her plan to pursue a summer internship with USINDOPACOM to better research how the military dealt with issues in the Asia-Pacific.
Despite initially deciding to continue with an internship instead, Mastro enlisted in the U.S. Air Force in fall 2008 and later started officer training to commission as a second lieutenant.
In 2009, she joined Department of Defense as an analyst for the US Pacific Command. Subsequently, in 2010, she worked for the Project 2049 Institute as a summer associate. From 2012 to 2013, she was a fellow at the Center for a New American Security.
In 2013, Mastro was appointed assistant professor of security studies at Georgetown's Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service, and in 2020, she was appointed a center fellow at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies.
In the meantime, Mastro has also continued her military service in the U.S. Air Force Reserve, including by serving as a China Strategist in the Strategic Studies Group (SSG) from 2010 to 2013, serving as an Asia-Pacific Strategist in the Asia-Pacific Cell (A8XS-APC), serving as a Reserve Air Attaché for Asia-Pacific Region from 2014 to 2016, serving as a Political Military Affairs Strategist for the Pacific Air Forces (PACAF A5X) from 2016 to 2020, among others. She has received various awards for her service, including the Air Force's 2016 Individual Reservist Company Grade Officer of the Year.
Publications
Books
The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, Cornell University Press, Security Affairs Series, 2019
Articles
How an Alliance System Withers, Foreign Affairs, September 9, 2019 (co-authored with Bonnie S. Glaser)
China’s huge exercises around Taiwan were a rehearsal, not a signal, says Oriana Skylar Mastro, The Economist, August 10, 2022
Congressional testimonies
Statement before the Select Committee on the Chinese Communist Party - The Challenges of Deterrence in the Taiwan Strait: Recommendations for U.S. Policy, April 26, 2023
Statement before the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission on “Deterring PRC Aggression Toward Taiwan” - The Precarious State of Cross-Strait Deterrence, February 18, 2021
Testimony of Dr. Oriana Skylar Mastro before the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Hearing on “A New Approach for An Era of U.S.-China Competition,” March 13, 2019
References
Living people
Year of birth missing (living people) Stanford University alumni Princeton University alumni United States–Asian relations American foreign policy writers American Enterprise Institute Stanford University faculty American international relations scholars American political scientists Sinologists United States Air Force Reserves 21st-century American academics