Claas Mertens received his Ph.D. in International Relations from the University of Oxford. Before joining the Niehaus Center, he was a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at Oxford’s Blavatnik School of Government. His research focuses on international economic conflicts, such as economic sanctions and weaponized interdependencies, and the international political economy of climate change. It also explores intersections between these two areas. His work has been published in International Studies Quarterly and The Review of International Organizations. He holds an MPhil in Politics from Oxford and a BA in Business from the University of St. Gallen, and he was a visiting student at Harvard. Before his Ph.D., he worked as a management consultant. Claas was Rowing World Champion in 2015 and represented Oxford in the 2018 Oxford-Cambridge Boat Race. Now, he enjoys surfing, where his passion far exceeds his skills.