Dr. Crystal D. Pryor is a Senior Fellow with the Center for Policy Research at the University at Albany, SUNY.

Dr. Pryor has extensive experience participating in and overseeing events on nonproliferation and economic security issues in East Asia. Dr. Pryor has engaged government officials and other stakeholders, including industry representatives, from Cambodia, Indonesia, Laos, Philippines, Thailand, and Mongolia. Dr. Pryor has also been involved in bilateral consultations with Indonesia on STM system development via the INECP program (2019) and more recently with USINDO (2021-2022) and CPR. Dr. Pryor has been leading CPR’s current EXBS award on STC Strengthening in the Philippines. Her research focuses on the benefits of STC/STM implementation for Southeast Asia, which emphasizes the positive role of STC/STM in a country’s ability to attract Foreign Direct Investment. 

Crystal spent 6 years living in Tokyo, where she was a Japanese government (MEXT) research scholar at the University of Tokyo before working in the Culture Section at the U.S. Embassy in Tokyo (2008-2010). She has both Japanese and American policy experience from an internship at think tank affiliated with a major Japanese political party in 2006-2008 and in consulting on U.S. health insurance reform for the Japan division of a major pharmaceutical company in 2011.

She received her Ph.D. in Political Science from the University of Washington (2016) and was a postdoctoral fellow at Harvard University (2016-2017). Crystal's dissertation was on strategic trade control practices in advanced countries. Crystal also holds master’s degrees in Political Science from the University of Tokyo (2009) and the University of Washington (2012). Dr. Pryor received her B.A. with Honors in International Relations from Brown University in 2004.

With a JLPT Level 1 certification in Japanese, Crystal has professionally translated a range of academic, business, and scientific documents for major Japanese companies and universities.