Alexandra Chinchilla is a PhD candidate in Political Science at the University of Chicago. She researches proxy warfare, military intervention, security cooperation, NATO, and the domestic politics of international relations. Her dissertation focuses on when and to what extent states choose to intervene in conflict to support local proxies and use military advisors to manage the resulting political and military challenges of working with proxy forces. It examines U.S. and Russian cases of intervention in conflict through a blend of game theory, original archival and quantitative data, and fieldwork. Alexandra’s work has been supported by the Pearson Institute for the Study and Resolution of Global Conflicts. 

At the Chicago Project on Security and Threats (CPOST), Alexandra is a Data Research Fellow. She leads the Data Analytics team in producing data-driven research and publications for both academic and policy audiences. Her research at CPOST focuses on the causes and consequences of suicide terrorism, and the link between suicide terrorism and conflict.  

Alexandra earned an MA in Political Science from the University of Chicago, and a BS in Foreign Service from the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University, with a concentration in international security and a minor in Russia and East European Studies. She speaks Polish and some Russian, and has studied abroad at Kingʼs College London; Jagiellonian University in Krakow, Poland; Moscow State Institute of International Relations (MGIMO); and Moscow State University (MGU). Alexandra held internships or fellowships with the RAND Corporation, the Political-Economic section at the U.S. Embassy in Warsaw, and the U.S. House of Representatives Armed Services Committee.