Zara Albright

Zara completed her Ph.D. in Political Science at Boston University in Summer 2025. In Fall 2025, she joins the Princeton University Program in Latin American Studies as a Postdoctoral Research Associate and Lecturer in Latin American Studies. She also holds a 2025-2026 Hans J. Morgenthau Fellowship at the Notre Dame International Security Center. While at Boston University, Zara was a Global China Pre-Doctoral Research Fellow at the Global Development Policy Center and a Graduate Student Affiliate of the Center for Innovation in Social Science.

Zara’s research lies at the intersection of international relations and comparative politics and explores the links between great power competition and global development. Specifically, her research examines the causes and consequences of growing political, diplomatic, and economic links between Latin America and China. Her dissertation analyzed the region’s foreign policies for navigating US-China competition, with particular attention to the role of domestic politics and discourse. Zara’s work contributes to literature on the role and agency of smaller states in the international system, specifically in the context of great power competition. Prior to graduate school, she researched economic development policies for the United Nations Economic Commission for Latin America and the Caribbean in Santiago, Chile and studied global development in Uruguay and Argentina. Zara earned her Bachelor of Science and Master of Science in International Affairs from the Georgia Institute of Technology in Atlanta.