Tong Zhao is a senior fellow in the Nuclear Policy Program at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, based at the Carnegie–Tsinghua Center for Global Policy in Beijing. His research focuses on strategic security issues, including nuclear weapons policy, deterrence, arms control, nonproliferation, missile defense, hypersonic weapons, and regional nuclear crises. He is on the Board of Directors of the Asia-Pacific Leadership Network for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, an Associate Editor of the journal Science & Global Security, and a member of the International Panel on Fissile Materials (IPFM). He was previously a Stanton Nuclear Security Fellow with the Managing the Atom Project and the International Security Program at the Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs at Harvard University. He has held a number of other positions, including as a nonresident WSD-Handa Fellow at Pacific Forum CSIS and has worked for the Office of Foreign Affairs of the People’s Government of Beijing Municipality.

He holds a PhD in science, technology, and international affairs from Georgia Institute of Technology, and received a B.S. in physics and an M.A. in international relations from Tsinghua University.