I am a Perry World House Postdoctoral Fellow at the University of Pennsylvania and an incoming Assistant Professor of Foreign Policy and National Security at the School of International Service at American University in Washington, D.C. I completed an MA in Political Science from McGill University and a PhD in Government from the University of Texas at Austin.

At Penn, I co-lead a project with Professor Beth Simmons on Borders and Boundaries, exploring how emerging technologies are transforming borders into increasingly “smart” systems worldwide. Previously, I was a Postdoctoral Associate at Cornell University, working on a National Science Foundation-funded project, where I developed a global political violence dataset utilizing supervised machine learning and AI-assisted large language models.

My research sits at the intersection of international security, emerging technologies, and the politics of the Global South. My dissertation-based book project examines how institutionalized defense cooperation allows access to resources, technology, and prestige that help governments reduce coup risk and strengthen regime stability in developing countries. 

My work appears or is forthcoming in Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Peace Research, Security Studies, Foreign Policy Analysis, and International Interactions. My research was supported by the Clements Center for National Security, the British, Irish, and Empire Studies at UT, the American Institute of Bangladesh Studies, SSHRC, and the Institute of Humane Studies. 

I periodically write public-facing/policy-focused commentary on Indo-Pacific geopolitics, U.S.-South Asia relations, and defense-sector governance and democratization in Bangladesh. My pieces have appeared in Foreign Affairs, War on the Rocks, The National Interest, The Diplomat, and Time, among other outlets.

You can view my CV here.

Email: mrahman5@upenn.edu