Hello! I am the MacArthur Hennessy Fellow at Stanford University's Center for International Security and Cooperation (CISAC). I was previously a postdoctoral fellow in the Department of Political Science at the University of Notre Dame where I also received my PhD in August 2024.

I am interested in questions concerning international security, nuclear politics, and racism. My work on realism and racism has been published in Security Studies and is currently under a revise & resubmit at the Journal of Race, Ethnicity, and Politics. 

My book project, Racism among Nations: Geopolitical Competition and the Shifting Nature of Racial Hierarchy, theorizes the emergence of racial norms in the international system and how these norms affect great power politics. 

My book project stems from my broader interest in epistemological matters on what people know about the world around them. For an analysis within the domestic sphere, see my work on political awareness of carceral and anti-immigrant ballot propositions.

I have a BA in Political Science, Anthropology, and English from the University of Miami and an MA in Political Science from the University of Notre Dame. I was previously a Hans J. Morgenthau pre-doctoral fellow at Notre Dame's International Security Center and an APSA Diversity Fellow. 

Contact me at bustama@stanford.edu