Keren Yarhi-Milo

Keren Yarhi-Milo is the Director of the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies and the Arnold A. Saltzman Professor of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research and teaching focus on international relations and foreign policy, with a particular specialization in international security, including foreign policy decision-making, interstate communication and crisis bargaining, intelligence, and US foreign policy in the Middle East.

Professor Yarhi-Milo’s first book (Princeton University Press, 2014) titled, “Knowing The Adversary: Leaders, Intelligence Organizations, and Assessments of Intentions in International Relations,” received the 2016 Furnnis Award for best book in the field of international security. Also, it is Co-Winner of the 2016 DPLST Book Prize, Diplomatic Studies Section of the International Studies Association. This book explores how and why civilian leaders and intelligence organizations select and interpret an adversary’s signals of intentions differently. Her new book, titled “Who Fights for Reputation? The Psychology of Leaders in International Conflict” came out with Princeton University Press (2018) and received the 2019 Best Book Award on Foreign Policy from the American Political Science Association. It also won the Biennial Best Foreign Policy Book Award from the International Studies Association, which will be presented at the 2021 ISA Annual Convention. The ISA committee stated that Professor Yarhi-Milo’s book “considers a long-debated question in international relations — whether reputation matters,” and “impressively showcases how to integrate different theories and methods from multiple disciplines in understanding leaders’ decision making in Foreign Policy Analysis.”

Yarhi-Milo’s articles have been published or are forthcoming in International Studies Quarterly, International Organization, International Security, British Journal of Political Science, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Foreign Affairs, and Security Studies.

Before joining the faculty at Columbia University, she was an Associate Professor (with tenure) of Politics and International Affairs at Princeton University’s Politics Department and the Woodrow Wilson School for Public and International Affairs. She was previously a post-doc fellow at the Harvard University’s Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs and a pre-doc fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. Yarhi-Milo has worked at the Mission of Israel to the United Nations, as well as served in the Israeli Defense Forces, Intelligence Branch. Her dissertation received the Kenneth Waltz Award for the best dissertation in the field of International Security and Arms Control in 2010. She also has received awards for the study of Political Science from the Smith Richardson Foundation, the Arthur Ross Foundation, and the Abram Morris Foundation.

She holds a Ph.D. and a Master’s degree from the University of Pennsylvania, and a B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science from Columbia University. Read more at kerenyarhimilo.com

Education

• Ph.D., University of Pennsylvania
• B.A., summa cum laude, in Political Science from Columbia University

Honors & Awards

• 2016 Furnnis Award
• Co-Winner of the 2016 DPLST Book Prize