Sara Castro

Dr. Sara B. Castro is a Professor of Instruction at the Clements Center for National Security and an Associate Director of the Clements-Strauss Intelligence Studies Project.

Dr. Castro’s research focuses on global military and intelligence history, especially related to the evolution of U.S.-China relations. Dr. Castro is the author of Mission to Mao: U.S. Intelligence and the Chinese Communists in World War II (Georgetown University Press, 2024). She is also co-editor of Shots in the Dark: Experimentation, Success, and Failure in the Second World War (Fordham University Press, 2025). Dr. Castro has been featured in Politico, and WIRE China, and she has published articles and reviews in numerous journals and other publications. She serves on the editorial advisory board of the International Journal of Intelligence and Counterintelligence and is a past president of the Society for Intelligence History. Her current research focuses on early Cold War intelligence technology and information campaigns.

Prior to joining the Clements Center, Dr. Castro taught college students and military professionals for over a decade. She served as an Associate Professor of History at the U.S. Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, CO. Before her appointment to the Air Force Academy, Dr. Castro was an Assistant Teaching Professor in the Curriculum in Peace, War, and Defense at the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill and as Associate Director of the Triangle Institute for Strategic Studies Intelligence Community Center of Academic Excellence (IC-CAE). She has also taught at the National Security Space Institute. Work as an intelligence analyst on East Asia at the Central Intelligence Agency spurred her interest in national security before she became an educator.

Dr. Castro received a PhD in History from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, where she focused on Chinese history and military history. She earned a Master of Arts in Law and Diplomacy from the Fletcher School at Tufts University. She graduated summa cum laude from Arizona State University, with BA degrees in History and Religious Studies and a minor in Chinese.