Patricia A. Weitsman is Professor of Political Science. She did her undergraduate work at Indiana University, spending one year at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. She received her Ph.D. from Columbia University in 1994.

Weitsman's areas of research and specialization are in international relations, with an emphasis on international security and international relations theory. She held fellowships at the Graduate Institute of International Studies, Geneva, Switzerland, and was a Visiting Scholar at the Hoover Institution, Stanford University. She is co-author of The Politics of Policy Making in Defense and Foreign Affairs (1993), co-editor of Towards a New Europe (1995) and Enforcing Cooperation (1997). Her most recent book, Dangerous Alliances: Proponents of Peace, Weapons of War, Stanford University Press, 2004, was a finalist for several major book awards. Her work has been published in numerous edited volumes as well as journals in the field, including Security Studies, the Journal of Peace Research, Comparative Political Studies, Human Rights Quarterly, PS: Political Science and Politics and in a number of newspapers, including The New York Times, International Herald Tribune, and the Columbus Dispatch.

Weitsman was nominated and elected to the governing board of the International Security Studies Section of the International Studies Association in 2006. She is currently working on a short monograph on coalition warfare, as well as a larger project on war and identity. She has received the College of Arts and Sciences Outstanding Teacher Award and was twice named University Professor. In 2008, she received the Outstanding Graduate Teacher Award, and in the spring of 2009 will be speaker for the graduate commencement ceremony.