Independent Researcher/Consultant
Tara Chandra is a PhD Candidate in Political Science at UC Berkeley. Her research falls primarily at the intersection of gender and international security. Her dissertation project focuses on insurgent violence against women, and examines what strategic dynamics help determine the form that targeting of women by insurgent groups will take. Tara’s work also addresses broader theories of insurgency/counterinsurgency, and the causes and consequences of political violence more generally. In addition, Tara is interested in gender and political behavior in myriad other contexts, including in the United States and U.S. foreign policy. She holds an undergraduate degree in Political Science from the University of Chicago, where she graduated with Honors in 2011. Tara also holds an MA in Global Affairs from Yale University’s Jackson Institute for Global Affairs. While at Yale, she served as Managing Editor for Interviews for the Yale Journal of International Affairs. Tara was also a founding member of Jackson Women, an organization that connects Master’s students with Yale undergraduates and provides mentorship opportunities for undergraduate women. Prior to her graduate study at Yale, Tara worked at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, where she served as David Rothkopf’s lead researcher on a book on U.S. foreign policy and national security (National Insecurity: American Leadership in an Age of Fear). A selection of her previous internship experience includes the Center for Arms Control and Nonproliferation, the Brookings Institution, and Capitol Hill.