Welcome to AdamPhailLiff.com

Welcome, and thank you for visiting. On this website you will find my CV, a portfolio of selected writing samples, and a small gallery of photos from some of my travels.

I am currently a doctoral student at Princeton University's Department of Politics, where I have been studying since September 2009. My subfields are international relations,  Northeast Asia political and security relations, and formal and quantitative (F&Q) methods. My current research interests include asymmetric warfare, cyber security, US alliances in Northeast Asia, and China's defense modernization.

Born in Seattle, Washington and raised in Atlanta, Georgia, I received my bachelor's degree from Stanford University (Majors: East Asian Studies and Psychology; Minor: Political Science), where my studies culminated in a senior honors thesis on contemporary Japanese security policy.

Within twenty-four hours of commencement ceremonies I was on a flight to Beijing, where I spent the next ten months studying Mandarin Chinese, auditing graduate-level courses taught in Chinese at Peking University's School of International Studies, and traveling. That experience was followed by a brief stint back in the United States as a summer intern in the Asia Studies Program at the Council of Foreign Relations.

From October 2006 through March 2008 I was a Japanese government-sponsored research scholar affiliated with the University of Tokyo's Graduate School of Law and Politics. During my time at the University of Tokyo I also worked as an intern in the office of a member of the Lower House of the Japanese Diet and the Liberal Democratic Party's (LDP) International Bureau. My last post prior to coming to Princeton was at the Japan Center for International Exchange (JCIE), an independent think tank headquartered in Tokyo, where I worked as a research associate from January 2007 to September 2009. For the final eight months of my tenure at JCIE, I telecommuted from mainland China while conducting independent research on Chinese foreign policy.

In my free time I enjoy reading, photography, cultural exchange, mountain climbing,  music, and testing the limits of my foreign language skills.  I am also an avid traveler. A few highlights from the last few years include: exploring a North Korean infiltration tunnel on the South Korean side of the DMZ, riding on a donkey cart from the world's highest monastery (5200m) to Mt. Everest Base Camp, and fishing (unsuccessfully...) for piranha in the Amazon River.

If you happen to have any further questions, please do not hesitate to contact me. My email address is posted in the left margin of every page.

Again, thank you for visiting!