Oriana Skylar Mastro
US political scientist and Air Force officer Oriana S. Mastro in uniform
Nationality	American
Other names	梅惠琳
Education	Stanford University (BA), Princeton University (PhD)
Occupation(s)	Political scientist, China specialist
Employer(s)	Stanford University, American Enterprise Institute
Spouse	Arzan Tarapore
Website	https://www.orianaskylarmastro.com

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. ^[1] She is also a non-resident senior fellow at the American Enterprise Institute ^[2] 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. ^[3]

Education

Mastro holds a BA (2006) in East Asian Studies from Stanford University ^[4] and a MA (2009) and PhD (2013) in politics from Princeton University. ^{[5] [6]}

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. ^[4]

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. ^[4]

In 2009, she joined the Department of Defense as an analyst for the U.S. 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. ^[2]

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, ^[7] including by serving as a China Strategist in the Strategic Studies Group from 2010 to 2013, serving as an Asia-Pacific Strategist in the Asia-Pacific Cell, 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 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. ^[2]

Publications

Books

• The Costs of Conversation: Obstacles to Peace Talks in Wartime, Cornell University Press, Security Affairs Series, 2019 ^[8]

Contributed Volumes

• The Military Challenge of the People's Republic of China, in Defense Budgeting for a Safer World: The Experts Speak, Hoover Institution, November 1, 2023 ^{[9] [10]}

• Project Atom 2023: A Competitive Strategies Approach for U.S. Nuclear Posture through 2035, Center for Strategic and International Studies, September 30, 2023 (co-authored with Heather Williams, Kelsey Hartigan, Lachlan MacKenzie, Robert Soofer, Tom Karako, Franklin Miller, Leonor Tomero, and Jon Wolfsthal) ^[11]

• Deepening US-Taiwan Cooperation Through Semiconductors, in Silicon Triangle: The United States, Taiwan, China, and Global Semiconductor Security, Hoover Institution, July 18, 2023 (co-authored with Kharis Templeman) ^{[12] [13]}

Articles

• The Next Tripartite Pact? Foreign Affairs, February 19, 2024 ^[14]
• The U.S. Can Still Avoid War With China Over Taiwan, The New York Times, October 16, 2023 ^[15]

• Talking to the enemy: Explaining the emergence of peace talks in interstate war, Journal of Theoretical Politics, July 4, 2023 (co-authored with David A. Siegal) ^[16]

• How an Alliance System Withers, Foreign Affairs, September 9, 2019 (co-authored with Bonnie S. Glaser) ^[17]

• China’s huge exercises around Taiwan were a rehearsal, not a signal, says Oriana Skylar Mastro, The Economist, August 10, 2022 ^[18]

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 ^[19]

• 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 ^[20]

• 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 ^[21]

Personal life

Mastro is married to Arzan Tarapore, a research scholar at Stanford's Freeman Spogli Institute for International Studies. ^{[22] [23]}

References