Payam Ghalehdar’s research interests span US foreign policy, grand strategy, military intervention, and the role of emotions in foreign policy decision-making. From 2017 to 2019, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow with the International Security Program at the Harvard Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs. Prior to joining the Belfer Center, Payam was a Lecturer in International Relations at the University of Cambridge and a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Global Cooperation Research in Duisburg, Germany. He obtained his Ph.D. from the European University Institute and holds a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in Political Science from the University of Mannheim.