Stanislava P. Mladenova is a nonresident senior fellow with the Transatlantic Security Initiative within the Atlantic Council’s Scowcroft Center for Strategy and Security. She is a global fellow with the Watson Institute of International and Public Affairs’ Center for Human Rights and Humanitarian Studies at Brown University. Her work centers on security and international development, focusing on cooperation between humanitarian actors and security in fragile states, as well as other aspects of civil-military affairs.

Previously, at the World Bank, Mladenova lead efforts to examine how climate financing can reduce fragility, conflict, and violence. She has also served as an Irregular Warfare Initiative fellow at the United States Military Academy at West Point and an emergency responder for Operation Allies Welcome at the International Rescue Committee. At the United States Institute of Peace, she implemented projects that established dialogue and cooperation between the police forces, gendarmerie, and local communities in six West African countries. As a NATO political officer, Mladenova worked on organizational reform initiatives at NATO Headquarters in Brussels. In this role, she was also responsible for analyzing economic issues, governance, corruption, disaster management, gender, humanitarian assistance, and the recruitment of child soldiers while posted in Kabul, Afghanistan.

Mladenova has worked in Africa, Central and South Asia, North and South America, Western Europe, and the Balkans. She holds a master’s degree from the Rockefeller College of Public Affairs and Policy at the University of Albany and a doctor of philosophy degree from King’s College London. Mladenova is the author of When Rambo Meets the Red Cross: Civil-Military Engagement in Fragile States (Rowman & Littlefield, 2024).