Gabriella Colello
PhD Candidate, Department of Political Science
University of California, Irvine
Dissertation
Securing Precarious Worlds: Institutions, Catastrophic Risk, and the Emergent Politics of Survival
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Abstract: This dissertation examines planetary security through three overlapping domains that are typically analyzed in isolation: AI-mediated governance, nuclear weapons, and environmental harm. By tracing how security decision-making unfolds at critical intersections of these domains, the project identifies recurring points of confrontation where dominant frameworks exclude Global South actors, alternative risk perceptions, and long-term harms. The dissertation argues that these exclusions are not merely ethical oversights, but also sources of decision failure. Even when the primary goal is strategic stability or crisis management, overlooking these perspectives produces more brittle and dangerous outcomes. Drawing on cases spanning nuclear governance, AI-enabled security systems, and environmental legacies, the project advances a new framework for strengthening decision-making under conditions of planetary risk.
Select Awards
National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship Program (September 2023-June 2028)
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Award Amount: $147,000
Eugene Cota-Robles Graduate Fellowship (September 2022-June 2028)
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Award Amount: $107,256
Kugelman Research Fellowship, Center for Citizen Peacebuilding (June 2025-June 2026)
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Award Amount: $1,500
Brython-Davis Fellowship (April-June 2025)
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Award Amount: $12,000
Cascading Mentorship Fellowship (April 2025)
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Award Amount: $3981.55
Publications
My research sits at the intersection of global security, planetary governance, and the politics of world-making. My earlier work engaged deeply with relational, decolonial, and cosmological approaches to international relations, examining how power and vulnerability are shaped by the meanings communities attach to crisis and survival. These commitments continue to ground my thinking, but my current projects place greater emphasis on institutional processes and policy frameworks, now tracing how organizations confront catastrophic risk, implement security practices, and navigate competing world-ordering commitments. Bringing these strands together allows me to study both how security is imagined and how it is enacted amid planetary challenges.
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Publications
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Colello, Gabriella. “Saprobic Politics: Decomposing Colonial Cosmologies in International Relations.” Review of International Studies, 2025, 1–21. https://doi.org/10.1017/S0260210525000269.
Book Chapter: Colello, Gabriella. “Pedagogie-Z: Generating Care in a Traumatized Generation.” In Teaching Political Science and International Relations for Early Career Instructors, edited by Misbah Hyder and Michael Murphy. Palgrave Macmillan (2024).
Article (Contributing Author): Baricuatro, Malia, Annie Fay Camacho, Gabriella Colello, Jonathan U. Guerrero, Johansen Pico, and Tiara R. Na’puti. 2024. “A Canoe Concept Toward Sustained Indigenous Connections.” In Preparing Publicly Engaged Scholars: A Guide for Innovation in Doctoral Education, 60-68. New York: American Council of Learned Societies.
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Article (Lead Author): Colello, Gabriella, Swapna Pathak, and Marcos Scauso. 2022. “Solutions for Whom and by Whom? Environmental Norms and Intersectional Decoloniality.” Environmental Philosophy 19 (2): 237–266. https://doi.org/10.5840/envirophil202266118
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Forthcoming
Article (Invited Contributor): Behera, Navnita; Colello, Gabriella; Kurki, Milja; Lynch, Cecelia; and Querejazu, Amaya. “Relational Voices in IR: Pluralizing Relationality.” International Studies Review [Presidential Issue], forthcoming 2026.
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Book Chapter: Colello, Gabriella. “Introduction.” In Indomitable ‘Others’: Stories of Subaltern and More-than-Human Voices Confronting Liberalisms and Sustaining Worlds, ed. Scauso. Routledge (2026).
Under Review
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Article: Colello, Gabriella. “Worlds in Contest: Cosmological Security and Colonial Violence in West Papua.” Revise and resubmit, Security Dialogue.
Works in Progress
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Dissertation: Securing Precarious Worlds: Institutions, Catastrophic Risk, and the Emergent Politics of Survival.
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Article: "Tides of Justice: Ecocide Law as a Mechanism of Alternative Security." Gabriella Colello and Garrett Fitzgerald
Select Conferences
International Studies Association (Annual Convention)
Chicago, Illinois • 2025
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Panelist, Relational Voices in IR: Relationality, Peace, and Conflict
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Chair, Relational Voices in IR: Deconstructing Colonial Legacies
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International Studies Association–West
Pasadena, California • 2024
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Panelist, Security and Peace from Across Perspectives
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Chair, Undergraduate Research Panel: Colonial Legacies and Resistance
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Native American and Indigenous Studies Association (Annual Convention)
Bodø, Norway • 2024
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Roundtable Participant, Oceania Rising: Nuclear Remembrance and Relational Worldings in the Sea of Islands
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International Studies Association (Annual Convention)
San Francisco, California • 2024
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Panelist, Relational Voices in IR: Pluriversalizing Relationality
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Chair, Relational Voices in IR: Decolonization, Resistance, and Denunciations of Oppressions
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Roundtable Participant, Critically-Focused Pedagogical Praxes: Articulating Practices in Educating for Justice and Liberation
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National Humanities Conference
Indianapolis, Indiana • 2023
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Panelist, Making Pathways Meet: Promising Directions for Publicly Engaged Doctoral Training
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International Studies Association–West
Pasadena, California • 2023
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Roundtable Participant, Relationality and Pluriversality: An Approximation
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International Studies Association (Virtual)
Online • August 2023
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Panelist, Liberal Biases and Violence: Civilization, Othering, and Erasure
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Roundtable Participant, Experiences of Early Career Instructors in International Studies: Struggles and Opportunities for Pedagogical Futures
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International Studies Association (Annual Convention)
Montréal, Canada • 2023
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Workshop Participant, GSCIS Author Symposium: Building a Stronger Collaborative Relationship Between Author and Editor (invitation only)
