Todd Sechser
S282 Gibson Hall
Spring 2026 | By Appointment
Degrees
Stanford University, Ph.D., Political Science
Biography
Todd S. Sechser is Professor of Politics and a Faculty Senior Fellow at the Miller Center of Public Affairs at the University of Virginia. He is also a Nonresident Scholar in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. His research focuses on coercive diplomacy, nuclear security, emerging military technologies, and foreign policy.
Sechser is coauthor of Nuclear Weapons and Coercive Diplomacy (Cambridge University Press) and coeditor of Emerging Technologies and International Stability (Routledge). His work has appeared in the American Journal of Political Science, International Organization, International Studies Quarterly, Journal of Conflict Resolution, Journal of Experimental Psychology: Applied, and the Journal of Strategic Studies, among other journals, and his policy writing has been published in the Washington Post, Wall Street Journal, Boston Globe, and other media venues. He previously directed the multi-university Program on Strategic Stability Evaluation, a nuclear strategy study group, and was the founding director of the Karsh Institute’s Democratic Statecraft Lab.
His research has been supported by the Carnegie Corporation of New York, the U.S. Air Force, and the Stanton Foundation, and he regularly consults for several government and military agencies.
Sechser was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations and a postdoctoral fellow at the Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard University. He received his Ph.D. in political science from Stanford University, where his dissertation won the Walter Isard Award for the Best Dissertation in Peace Science. Before entering academia, Dr. Sechser worked as a nuclear policy analyst at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
He has received multiple awards for teaching, including the All-University Teaching Award and the inaugural Cory Family Teaching Award. He currently directs the Politics Honors Program.
