Monica Duffy Toft is an Associate Professor of Public Policy at the Kennedy School and the Assistant Director of the John M. Olin Institute for Strategic Studies at Harvard.

She was a research intern at the RAND Corporation and served in the U.S. Army in southern Germany as a Russian voice interceptor.

Her research interests include international relations, nationalism and ethnic conflict, civil and interstate wars, the relationship between demography and national security, and military and strategic planning.

She is the author of two book manuscripts, a monograph, The Geography of Ethnic Violence: Identity, Interests, and Territory, and an edited volume, The Fog of Peace: Strategic and Military Planning Under Uncertainty.

She holds a PhD and MA from the University of Chicago and a BA in political science and Slavic languages and literatures from the University of California, Santa Barbara.