Lora Saalman is a Beijing-based associate in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment. Under the auspices of a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellowship, Saalman’s research focuses on Chinese nuclear-weapon and nonproliferation policies and Sino-Indian strategic relations, linking the work of Carnegie’s programs in Beijing and Washington.
Saalman completed her PhD at Tsinghua University in Beijing, where she was the first American to earn a doctorate from its Department of International Relations. Her dissertation, which she wrote in Chinese and will translate into English, covers the impact of U.S. and European export control shifts on Sino-Indian military modernization. She was awarded the Outstanding PhD Graduate Award and the Outstanding Dissertation Award, Second Tier.
Prior to joining the endowment in April 2010, Saalman served as a visiting fellow at the Observer Research Foundation in New Delhi, a visiting fellow at the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies, and a research associate at the Wisconsin Project on Nuclear Arms Control. Additionally, she was a graduate research assistant at the Monterey Institute of International Studies’ Center for East Asian Studies and Center for Nonproliferation Studies (CNS), through which she earned a one-year fellowship to work at the Division of Safeguards Information Technology at the International Atomic Energy Agency.
Saalman has published Chinese-language articles in such peer-reviewed journals as Dangdai yatai (Contemporary Asia Pacific), Nanya yanjiu (South Asian Studies), and Guoji zhanwang (Global Review) on a range of topics including Sino-Indian energy diplomacy, China’s reaction to the U.S.-Indian nuclear deal, and Sino-Indian lobbying efforts in the United States. Her English-language work has also appeared in CNS Occasional Papers, conference reports, and issue briefs of the Nuclear Threat Initiative and the James Martin Center for Nonproliferation Studies on Chinese attitudes toward nuclear disarmament and Sino-U.S. arms-control relations.
