Mercedes Sapuppo is a program assistant with the Eurasia Center at the Atlantic Council. She was previously a research assistant with the Negotiation Task Force at the Davis Center for Russian and Eurasian Studies at Harvard University. She also worked as a research assistant with the Weatherhead Center for International Affairs at Harvard University focusing on power dynamics in the Eastern Mediterranean. She has held internships with the US House of Representatives Subcommittee on Europe, Energy, the Environment, and Cyber, the Atlantic Council, the Democracy and Culture Foundation, Human Rights Watch, and the Office of US Senator Elizabeth Warren. Sapuppo graduated from Harvard University with honors and holds a BA in social studies with a focus on democracy, human rights, and security in Central and Eastern Europe, for which she wrote her thesis about the assault on the free press and independent journalist resistance in Russia and Belarus.