Hasta Colman is an incoming America in the World Consortium Predoctoral Fellow at the Clements Center for National Security at the University of Texas at Austin, where she will also concurrently hold the position of Asia Policy Program Fellow during the coming academic year. Hasta comes to UT Austin from the Ph.D. program at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) in Washington, D.C., although she’s been based in Asia since 2022. Hasta was a visiting Ph.D. fellow at Nanjing University while conducting fieldwork in China, as well as Nepal, India, Cambodia, and Thailand (including with refugees from Myanmar). She was also a National Bureau of Asian Research Ph.D. Chinese Language Fellow at the International Chinese Language Program (ICLP) at National Taiwan University and is fluent in Mandarin Chinese.

Hasta’s dissertation unpacks the complex, multilevel relationships between China and the countries in its “neighborhood” (zhoubian waijiao, 周边外交). By assessing Chinese foreign policymaking at the periphery, she aims to elucidate the unique strategic calculus that determines when and why this regional hegemon intervenes in the fragmented internal politics of its less-developed neighbors. Through her work, Hasta hopes to contribute to U.S. foreign policy thinking on Asia by offering grounded, field-based analysis of China’s relations with neighboring countries at and beyond the margins of state authority. She is committed to producing scholarship that informs policymaking, fosters dialogue, and advances the public interest.

Hasta holds a master’s degree in international relations from the University of Chicago and a bachelor’s degree from Sarah Lawrence College. She has also held research fellowships and scholarships at Fudan University (Shanghai) and Tsinghua University (Beijing). Prior to her doctoral studies, she spent a decade working with grassroots NGOs, primarily in South and Southeast Asia, where she supported community-driven initiatives for local research, sustainable development, youth outreach, and the arts. Hasta has lived nearly half of her life in Asia, including five years in mainland China.