Matthew Connelly

Matthew Connelly earned his BA in history from Columbia University in 1990, before earning his doctorate from Yale University in 1997. His dissertation, “The Algerian War for Independence: An International History”, written under the supervision of Gaddis Smith, Paul Kennedy, and William Quandt, formed the basis for A Diplomatic Revolution. Prior to his appointment at Columbia University, he taught in the Department of History and Gerald R. Ford School of Public Policy at the University of Michigan. He has also been a visiting professor at the Institut d’Etudes Politiques de Paris (Sciences Po), the University of Oslo, and the University of Sydney.

Connelly is also the principal investigator at History Lab, a collective of Columbia University data scientists and historians that apply data-mining techniques to historical documents. History Lab has aggregated the largest online database of declassified documents anywhere in the world, while developing tools for researchers to explore these documents. The project is also attempting to find a solution to the growing crisis in government declassification. In an article for the New York Times, Connelly and Richard Immerman observe that "in the late 1990s more than 200 million pages of documents were being declassified each year. Today, that figure has stagnated at around 30 million, despite a huge increase in classified data." History Lab hopes to develop tools to machine-assist the declassification process. This would improve the efficiency and security of declassification, while also providing academics and researchers more data to understand government policy. The New Yorker, in an article on the initiative, states that the "researchers hope the project will help illuminate the space between necessary secrets and over-caution."

Matthew Connelly (born November 25, 1967) is an American professor of international and global history at Columbia University. His areas of expertise include the global Cold War, official secrecy, population control, and decolonization. He is the author of Fatal Misconception: The Struggle to Control World Population, A Diplomatic Revolution: Algeria's Fight for Independence and the Origins of the Post-Cold War Era, and articles on international and domestic politics for The Atlantic Monthly, The New York Times, The National Interest, and Le Monde. Connelly is also the founder and principal investigator of History Lab.