Kelly M. Greenhill is a political scientist, with joint faculty appointments at Tufts University and MIT, where she also serves as Director of the MIT-Seminar XXI Program and as a Senior Fellow in the Security Studies Program. Greenhill’s research straddles four intersecting lines of inquiry: the politics of information; migration and refugees; war and military operations; and coercion and asymmetric influence.
Greenhill has published four books, including the award-winning Weapons of Mass Migration: Forced Displacement, Coercion and Foreign Policy (2nd edition, forthcoming). She is currently completing a new book, a cross-national study that explores the influence of rumors, conspiracy theories, propaganda, and other forms of “extra-factual information” on international politics. Her work has also appeared in a variety of journals and media outlets, including International Security, Security Studies, International Studies Quarterly, European Law Journal, the New York Times, the Financial Times, Foreign Affairs, Foreign Policy, and The Washington Post. Greenhill’s research has also been cited in legal briefs in cases argued before the U.S. Supreme Court and in policy briefs and planning guidance for other organs of the U.S. government and its allies.
Greenhill has served as a consultant to the UN and the UN High Commissioner for Refugees, NATO, the World Bank, and the Ford Foundation; as a defense analyst for the U.S. Department of Defense; and as an economic policy intern for then Senator John F. Kerry. She holds a Ph.D. and an S.M. from MIT; a C.S.S. from Harvard University; and a B.A. from UC Berkeley.