Hannah Haegeland is a 2026-2027 Stanton Nuclear Security Postdoctoral Fellow in the MIT Security Studies Program’s Center for Nuclear Security Policy. She is also a Non-Resident Fellow at the U.S. National Nuclear Security Administration’s Sandia National Laboratories’ Cooperative Monitoring Center where she previously directed South Asia research and engagement and some work in the Middle East. She researches nuclear issues and the global history of strategic technology in Asia. Her book project, Before the Bomb: Nuclear Latency in Pakistan (1947-98), is a new history of global Cold War nuclear development. In it, she explores how, why, and to what effects regional states develop the capacity to build a nuclear weapons force. Pakistan’s pre-bomb history illustrates how early nuclear development shapes later technical development and strategic thinking about the utility of nuclear science and technology in international affairs. Haegeland earned her PhD at Johns Hopkins University jointly from the Departments of the History of Science and Technology and Political Science, and her MA in South Asia Studies from the University of Washington’s Jackson School of International Studies. From fall 2025 to fall 2026 she was a Research Fellow at the Harvard Kennedy School’s Belfer Center International Security Program and Project on Managing the Atom. Before returning to academia, she held research and teaching positions in Washington, D.C., Seattle, New Delhi, and Kathmandu focused on the security and history of South Asia.