Dr. Cynthia Roberts
Dr. Cynthia Roberts
Professor of Political Science, Hunter College, City University of New York, Senior Research Scholar, Saltzman Institute of War and
Peace Studies & Adjunct Professor of International Affairs, Columbia University
In 2019 she worked as a policy adviser at the Joint Staff, US Department of Defense in J-5, Strategy, Plans and Policy. Previously, Dr. Roberts was Director of the Russian Area Studies Graduate Program at Hunter, served on the Executive Committee on Science, Arms Control, and National Security of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, and held fellowships at the Brookings Institution and Stanford University.

Prof. Roberts’ work spans the military and financial statecraft of major powers and European security problems. She is the author of The BRICS and Collective Financial Statecraft, with L. Armijo and S. Katada, (Oxford 2018); First Principles of Great Power Competition, White Paper (2019); Russia and the European Union: The Sources and Limits of Special Relationships and numerous articles, book chapters and reports in scholarly and policy journals. Her most recent publication draws on multiyear archival research, including previously untapped war plans on "Trapped on the Eve of War, 1941: Stalin and His Generals Failing Separately and Together" (2022). Roberts' current research focuses on Russian nuclear policy; offense – defense relationships in the military policies of autocratic regimes; and blowback from the US weaponization of finance. Prof. Roberts received an M.A., M.Phil. and Ph.D. from Columbia University and a certificate from the Harriman Institute at Columbia.