I am a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for Global Security Research at the Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory. I earned my Ph.D. in political science from the University of Chicago in 2025. In 2025-2026, I was a postdoctoral fellow at the Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC) at Stanford University, where I remain an affiliate. My research examines the politicization of foreign policy bureaucracies and its consequences for international politics. More broadly, I’m interested in how domestic and international politics intersect on questions of foreign policy and national security. My regional expertise is in the foreign and security policies of South Asian states. I am on the academic job market.
In my book project, Enemies Within: Leaders, Political Orders, and the Politics of Foreign Policymaking, I ask why some leaders turn on their own foreign policy bureaucracies while others don’t. Drawing on elite interviews and archival evidence from India, the United States, and Turkey, I argue that whether a leader upholds or undermines the bureaucracy depends on whether they are heir or adversary of the established order.
I was formerly a researcher at the Stimson Center’s South Asia program in Washington, DC. My commentary has been featured in Foreign Policy, The Washington Post’s Monkey Cage blog, and War on the Rocks. Outside of work, I enjoy birdwatching, photography, and parenting many houseplants.
I can be reached at tallo.emily@gmail.com. You can also follow and connect with me on LinkedIn.