Eleanor Freund Atkins

Eleanor (Freund) Atkins is a PhD candidate at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in security studies and international relations, specializing in Chinese statecraft and security policy. Her research examines the variation and evolution of China’s security relationships with other states. She is currently a Research Fellow in the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School, a Pre-Doctoral Fellow in Notre Dame’s Morgenthau Grand Strategy Program, and a Peace Fellow at the U.S. Institute of Peace.

From 2022 to 2023, Eleanor was a Chinese Language Fellow with the National Bureau of Asian Research in Taipei, Taiwan. She holds an MA in Global Affairs from Tsinghua University in Beijing, where she was a Schwarzman Scholar, and a BA in Political Science, with highest honors, from the University of California, Berkeley. Prior to pursuing her PhD at MIT, she worked as a research assistant and associate at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard Kennedy School and served as a James C. Gaither Junior Fellow in China Studies at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace. Eleanor is a Nonresident Fellow at NBR.