Preceptors are advanced Ph.D. students who work with CIR students individually and in small groups to help them in completing the Committee's degree requirements. Students work closely with preceptors as they select an MA topic and they advise students in the thesis writing process.

Diana Kim

Diana Kim is a Ph.D. Candidate in Political Science. Her current research weaves together an empirical focus on East and Southeast Asia with logics of empire and colonial rule, state theory, as well as the sociology of punishment and danger. She is currently writing a dissertation; tentatively entitled "States of Vice," which explores the politics of opium and colonial state-making through a comparative historical analysis of British Burma, French Laos, and Siam from the late nineteenth to early twentieth century. Diana has worked as a consultant for the Chicago Council on Global Affairs in the past and recently taught at the University of Chicago in Department of Political Science as a Grodzins Prize Lecturer. Selected publications include: "The Story of the Tattooed Lady: Scandal and the Colonial State in British Burma" Law and Social Inquiry (forthcoming).

Jonathan Obert

Jonathan Obert is a Ph.D. candidate in the Department of Political Science specializing in American Political Development, International Security, and Comparative Politics. His dissertation, which uses archival research, social network analysis, and case studies, investigates the political process of internal violence monopolization and the development of police institutions in the United States and North America in the 19th Century. Jonathan's broader research interests include state formation, counterinsurgency theory, law, crime and social control, contentious politics, and social structural and network analytic methods.  Previously, he has written on constitutional change in Imperial Germany and Bismarck's approach to strategic action. Selected publications include: "Conflict Displacement and Dual Inclusion in the Construction of Germany" (with John Padgett) in The Emergence of Organizations and Markets, John Padgett and Walter Powell, eds. (Princeton University Press, 2012).

Matthias Staisch

Matthias Staisch is a Ph.D. candidate in Political Science. He holds a Magister in International Relations, Modern History, and Public Law from Eberhard-Karls-Universitaet Tuebingen (2003) and an M.A. in Political Science from the University of Chicago (2006). Before beginning his doctoral studies at the UofC, he was a research associate and instructor at Tuebingen's Center for International Relations and Peace Research. Matthias specializes in International Relations and Comparative Politics. His dissertation is entitled "The Imperial Origins of Multilateralism." In addition to his work on international order, he is completing article-length projects on counterinsurgency, and the theory-praxis gap in International Relations research. Methodologically, Matthias draws on a variety of network analytic, interpretive, and historical tools. Selected Publication: International Organization: Polity, Policy, and Politics, with Volker Rittberger and Bernhard Zangl (Basingstoke: Palgrave-Macmillan, 2006).