Department of Politics at Princeton University

Mastro is a doctoral candidate in the Politics department at Princeton University where she focuses on military operations and strategy, war termination, and Northeast Asia, China in particular. She is also a fellow in the Asia-Pacific Security Program at the Center for a New American Security (CNAS). Mastro has authored several publications including “Signaling and Military Provocation in Chinese National Security Strategy: A Closer Look at the Impeccable Incident,” Journal of Strategic Studies, April 2010.  A Pacific Forum CSIS Sasakawa Peace Fellow and University of Virginia Miller Center predoctoral fellow, she was also a Visiting Scholar at the Institute for Security and Conflict Studies at the Elliott School, George Washington University and a CNAS Next Generation National Security Leader 2010-11 . She has worked on China policy issues at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, RAND, U.S. Pacific Command, Project 2049, and has testified for the U.S.-China Economic and Security Review Commission. Highly proficient in Mandarin, she also worked at a Chinese valve-manufacturing firm in Beijing as a translator and makes frequent appearances on a Chinese-language debate show.  Mastro is also an officer in the United States Air Force Reserves and currently fulfills her reservist duties as a China strategist in the Chief of Staff of the Air Force’s Strategic Studies Group (SSG). She was featured in Citizen Airman Magazine in April 2011 as a model reservist and was listed as one of the most influential international security professionals under 33 by the Courier Diplomat.  She holds a B.A. in East Asian Studies from Stanford University and an M.A. in Politics from Princeton University.