Isabella Xueqian Huang is a M.A. student in the Department of Political Science at Columbia University, specializing in International Security. Her research focuses on military strategy in irregular warfare, great power competition, and the geopolitics of energy security.
Ms. Huang’s recent work includes the paper Leadership Decapitation by Drone Strikes in Counterinsurgency Wars: Assessing the Efficacy through the Lens of Governance Strategy, selected for presentation at the Columbia Civil Wars Workshop, and the capstone project From Power-Sharing to Power Grabs: Democratic Institutionalization, Veto Players, and Cambodia’s Authoritarian Drift After the 1993 Post-War Elections.
Prior to her studies at Columbia, Ms. Huang completed her undergraduate honors thesis Geopolitical Power Through Critical Minerals: The Strategic Role of Rare Earth Elements in China’s Post-2010 Foreign Policy and Its Implications for Energy Security and Global Alliances, supervised by Distinguished Professor Etel Solingen, and a paper on The Clausewitzian Approach on Moral Forces and Political Objectives in People’s War.
Ms. Huang earned her B.A. in Political Science and Economics with honors from the University of California, Irvine, and was selected into the National Political Science Honor Society in Spring 2024. She was awarded a scholarship for academic distinction upon admission to Columbia University.
