Fiona Cunningham Session Overview

Fiona Cunningham is Assistant Professor of Political Science at the University of Pennsylvania. She is also a Faculty Fellow at Perry World House and affiliated with the Center for the Study of Contemporary China and the Browne Center for International Politics at the University of Pennsylvania. Her research interests lie at the intersection of technology and conflict, with an empirical focus on China. Fiona’s first book Under the Nuclear Shadow: China’s Information-Age Weapons in International Security (Princeton University Press, 2025) examines China’s distinctive approach to the dilemma of coercing an adversary under the shadow of nuclear war, which relies on substitutes for nuclear threats. Her research has been published in International Security, Security Studies, and The Washington Quarterly, as well as other outlets. She has held fellowships at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University, the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University, and the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. She has conducted fieldwork at the Renmin University of China, supported by a China Confucius Studies Program research fellowship. Previously, she was an Assistant Professor of Political Science and International Affairs at the George Washington University. Fiona is a research affiliate with the MIT Security Studies Program and holds nonresident affiliations with the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and National Security College at the Australian National University. She received her PhD in political science from MIT.