Connelly, Matthew

Professor

Office Hours

Fall 2025: Monday and Wednesdays, 12:00 - 1:00 PM, and by appointment.

Education

Ph.D — Yale University, 1997
B.A. — Columbia University, 1990

 

Interests and Research

Matthew Connelly is a Professor of international and global history, Vice-Dean for AI Initiatives, and a Special Advisor in the office of the university president. From 2023-2025 he was the director of the Centre for the Study of Existential Risk at the University of Cambridge, and from 2016-2023 he was co-director of Columbia’s Institute for Social and Economic Research and Policy. Connelly is also the principal investigator of History Lab, an NSF and NEH-funded project that uses data science to analyze state secrecy, with a focus on intelligence, surveillance, and weapons of mass destruction. He has been a professor at the University of Michigan and the London School of Economics, and has also held visiting positions at the University of Oslo, the University of Sydney, the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris, and the Fundação Getulio Vargas in Rio de Janeiro. His publications include A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, which won five prizes, Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, an Economist and Financial Times book of the year, and The Declassification Engine: What History Reveals about America’s Top Secrets, which was shortlisted for the Cundill Prize. Connelly has also written research articles in Nature-Human Behaviour, the Annals of Applied Statistics, Comparative Studies in Society and History, The International Journal of Middle East Studies, The American Historical Review, The Review française d'histoire d'Outre-mer, the Journal of Global History, and Past & Present. He has provided commentary on international affairs for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The Washington Post, the Los Angeles Times, and Le Monde, and has hosted documentaries for BBC Radio. His courses include “The History of the End of the World,” “The Future as History,” and “World History Since World War II.” Connelly received his B.A. from Columbia in 1990 and earned his Ph.D. from Yale in 1997.

X