Laura Kupe is a Visiting Fellow for Geostrategic Competition at New America. She’s a multilingual attorney and national security professional with over 10 years of experience across the Department of Defense, U.S. House of Representatives, Department of Homeland Security, and the White House. Most recently, she served as Senior Advisor to former Deputy Secretary of Defense Kathleen Hicks. She has also worked as Counsel on the House Committee on Homeland Security, as a policy analyst at RAND Corporation, and as an Obama presidential appointee in DHS and the White House Presidential Personnel Office. Born in Germany to Congolese parents and raised in Luxembourg and the U.S., she identifies as “Afropean-American” and speaks German, French, and Luxembourgish. She is also a co-founder of Congolese Diaspora Impact Strategies, which has successfully hosted events and programming focused on the Congolese diaspora and the promotion of social impact, business, and entrepreneurship opportunities in the Democratic Republic of Congo (DRC) since 2019. Laura has also been recognized as a next-generation leader by organizations, like The Root and the Munich Security Conference She holds degrees from the University of Michigan and University of Michigan Law School.