I am an incoming 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.
In my book project, Enemies Within: Leaders, Distrust, and Democratic 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 the answer lies in identity: leaders’ social and political identities determine whether they see the bureaucracy as an ally to work with or an enemy to be brought to heel.
My other research uses text-as-data methods to analyze the connections between political parties, public opinion, and foreign policy, particularly in India.
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. I hold a B.S. in International Studies from Indiana University and an M.A. in political science from the University of Chicago.
I can be reached at tallo.emily@gmail.com. You can also follow me on Linkedin, X, or Bluesky.