Ilai Saltzman

Dr. Ilai Saltzman is an Associate Research Professor of Israel Studies, and the Director of the Gildenhorn Institute for Israel Studies at the University of Maryland, College Park. His scholarship and teaching focus on international security, Israeli foreign and security policy, US foreign policy, and political psychology. Dr. Saltzman is the author of Securitizing Balance of Power Theory: A Polymorphic Reconceptualization (2012). He has also written numerous scholarly articles and book chapters, and commentaries in the Los Angeles Times, Ha’aretz, The Jerusalem Post, and other prominent outlets. 

Dr. Saltzman earned his Ph.D. in International Relations in 2010 from the University of Haifa and was a postdoctoral research fellow at the International Security Program (ISP), Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, John F. Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University (2009-2010). 

Before he arrived in College Park, Dr. Saltzman was the Israel Institute’s Associate Director for Academic Program. In the past, he served as a professor of government at Claremont McKenna College where he taught classes in International Relations, Israeli foreign and security policy as well as US foreign policy. He had also taught at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem’s International Relations Department and the Rothberg International School (RIS), and Tel-Aviv University’s Political Science Department.