Cole A. Baker is the 2019 security and defense fellow at Young Professionals in Foreign Policy and a current congressional staffer. He has worked previously as a freelance contractor writing on terrorism and human trafficking, and as a violent extremism fellow for the United Nations in Turkey. His areas of focus include gray zone warfare, violent extremism and the nonproliferation of weapons of mass destruction. Baker holds an MA in Nonproliferation and Terrorism Studies from the Middlebury Institute of International Studies and a BA in Philosophy and Political Science from Middlebury College.