Gilbert Junbo Lai is a Ph.D. candidate in political science at Columbia University, majoring in international relations and minoring in political economy and comparative politics. His research interests include international relations theory, great power politics, economic development, state-building, and nationalism.
Mr. Lai is the 2025–26 Stephanie G. Neuman Fellow in Comparative Defense Studies at the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies. In the 2024–25 academic year, he was also a Hans J. Morgenthau Fellow at the University of Notre Dame and an Andrew W. Cordier Fellow at Columbia University. Before coming to Columbia, he received a B.A. in world history from Lanzhou University in 2020 and an M.A. in international relations from the University of Chicago in 2021.
