Burcu Sarı Karademir is a post-doctoral research scholar in the Arnold A. Saltzman Institute of War and Peace Studies at Columbia University. Her research interests include international relations theory, international security, diplomatic history and transnational terrorism. In her dissertation, she developed a constructivist analysis on balancing tendencies of China and Russia against the US. She is currently working on how social factors such as competition for international status and prestige might lead Russia and China to develop stronger balancing tendencies against the US.