Bio

Taylor Fravel (傅泰林) is the Arthur and Ruth Sloan Professor of Political Science and Director of the Security Studies Program at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. Fravel studies international relations, with a focus on international security, China, and East Asia. His research examines China’s behavior in its territorial disputes and the evolution of China’s military strategy. Prof. Fravel’s books include Strong Borders, Secure Nation: Cooperation and Conflict in China’s Territorial Disputes, (Princeton University Press, 2008) and Active Defense: China’s Military Strategy Since 1949 (Princeton University Press, 2019). 

Prof. Fravel is a graduate of Middlebury College and Stanford University, where he received his PhD. He also has graduate degrees from the London School of Economics and Oxford University, where he was a Rhodes Scholar. In 2016, he was named an Andrew Carnegie Fellow by the Carnegie Corporation. He has been a member of the board of directors of the National Committee on U.S.-China Relations and serves as the Principal Investigator for the Maritime Awareness Project. He was a Fairbank Center Visiting Scholar in 2023-24.

Research Interests: China’s foreign and security policies; U.S.-China relations