Reid Pauly is a PhD candidate in Political Science at MIT and a predoctoral fellow with the Belfer Center's International Security Program and the Project on Managing the Atom. His dissertation explains the causes of credible coercive assurance—why and how targets of coercion believe that they will not be punished after they comply with demands. His broader research interests include nuclear proliferation, nuclear strategy, deterrence and assurance theory, wargaming, and Arctic security. Prior to graduate school, Reid was a research assistant at the Center for International Security and Cooperation at Stanford University and earned a B.A. in History and Government from Cornell University.