Colleen Larkin

Colleen Larkin is a postdoctoral fellow in technology and international security at the UC Institute on Global Conflict and Cooperation (IGCC), based in Washington, D.C. Her research focuses on foreign policy decision-making, strategic narratives, military doctrine, and nuclear politics, with a focus on nuclear strategy. Colleen received her Ph.D. in Political Science from Columbia University in 2024. Her book manuscript examines the emergence and persistence of the paradoxes of U.S. nuclear strategy. She highlights the role of strategic narratives in shaping nuclear choices, drawing on archival research and text analysis to locate the roots of these narratives in competition between national security elites.

From 2023-2024, Colleen was a predoctoral fellow with the Managing the Atom Project at Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Her work has been published in International Organization and the European Journal of International Security. She holds a B.A. in Political Science and Mathematics from Wellesley College.

Plans for the Fellowship: During the fellowship year, Colleen will conduct research on U.S. nuclear decision-making, drawing on materials from archives in the DC area. Her focus will be on producing a full-length book monograph. She will also continue work on an ongoing co-authored project examining the relationship between emerging technology and the future of nuclear nonuse.