Leonardo Baccini earned his Ph.D. from the Department of Political Science at Trinity College Dublin in September of 2009. He was a post-doctoral fellow at the Alexander Hamilton Center for Political Economy at New York University (2008-2009) and assistant professor at IMT Lucca (2009-2011). While at the Niehaus Center, Leonardo will work on a book project on north-south trade agreements. The book's core argument is that the formation of EU and US trade agreements is driven by the willingness of new leaders in developing countries to implement and lock in economic reforms. This thesis is tested using a combination of qualitative data from interviews and analytical case studies with quantitative data from an original dataset on the scope of trade agreements. His other research interests include the design of international institutions and diffusion of international organizations in sectors as diverse as trade, labor standards, and energy. His work has been published or is forthcoming in the British Journal of Political Science, European Union Politics, and European Journal of International Relations.