Anika Binnendijk is a nonresident senior fellow with the Scowcroft Center’s Transatlantic Security Initiative. Dr. Binnendijk works as a political scientist at the RAND Corporation, where she currently focuses on national security decision-making, European defense, gray zone challenges, future defense technologies, and national resilience. Binnendijk joined RAND from the State Department’s Office of Policy Planning, where she was responsible for advising the secretary of state on policy questions related to Russia, Ukraine, Turkey, the Caucasus, and NATO, and prior to that on Iran and Persian Gulf issues. During her State Department tenure, she served for a rotation as director for Russia at the National Security Council. From 2009 to 2012 she worked at the Office of the Secretary of Defense, first as a special assistant and policy advisor to the assistant secretary of Defense for International Security Affairs, and later the country director for Egypt. Binnendijk received her PhD from the Fletcher School, Tufts University, and her undergraduate degree from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton University.