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Spenser A. Warren is a Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow at the Harvard Belfer Center for Security and International Affairs for the 2025-2026 academic year. From 2023 to 2025, he was a Postdoctoral Fellow in Technology and International Security at the University of California Institute on Conflict and Cooperation. He received a PhD in Political Science from Indiana University in 2023 and a BA in International Relations and Russian Studies from Michigan State University in 2017.

Spenser’s research agenda focuses on the relationship between emerging technologies, nuclear strategy, strategic stability, and escalation management. His book project, based on his dissertation, explores the factors that drive Russian nuclear modernization and the strategic impacts of Russia’s new and upgraded nuclear delivery systems. This project directly contributes to the scholarly understanding of nuclear politics, emerging nuclear technologies, and Russian foreign policy and has broader implications for our understanding of how domestic and systemic factors interact to produce foreign policy outcomes, the ways technological innovation and progress impact strategic decisions, and security and foreign policy decision making in autocratic regimes. He is also beginning a research project that explores the structural factors that drive nuclear strategy and policymaking in a multipolar nuclear order.

His broader research interests include international relations theory, strategic studies, Eurasian security, and American and Russian grand strategy. Beyond his primary research projects, he is contributing to an interdisciplinary project probing the impacts of emerging technologies on strategic and crisis stability, as well as collaborations examining war termination and exploring the role of advisors in nuclear policymaking.

Spenser has published research in international relations, area studies, and strategic studies journals including Comparative Strategy, Asian Survey, and Parameters. He is also committed to public and policy-relevant scholarship and has published his public-facing work in The Conversation, War on the Rocks, and The National Interest.

In addition to his research, Spenser has taught three courses as an instructor of record: Terrorism and Counterterrorism, Democracy and National Security, and American Political Controversies. These classes include in-person, hybrid, and virtual course offerings. He has also served as an associate instructor for a range of courses in international relations and security studies. His teaching interests include international security, international relations theory, U.S. and Russian foreign policy, nuclear weapons, and emerging technologies.