Joseph Mulala Nguramo is a nonresident fellow in the Scowcroft Strategy Initiative in the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. He was born and spent his formative years in the Democratic Republic of the Congo. He was the first, and thus far only, Congolese to graduate from the United States Military Academy at West Point, where he majored in defense and strategic studies. He holds a master’s degree in global theory and history from the School of Advanced International Studies at Johns Hopkins University. Additionally, Nguramo has worked as a research assistant at the Brookings Institution, where he focused on education; at the Taubman Center for State and Local Government within Harvard University’s Kennedy School of Government, where he focused on African public policy; and at the International Economic Alliance, where he led the student internship program and organized meetings between governments and private sector participants to promote trade, economic growth and development.