About Nola Haynes

Nola Haynes is an international relations-focused political scientist and national security and foreign policy contributor. Nola’s research centers on traditional and non-traditional threats, sanctions, WMD in space, strategic competition and intersectionality. Most recently, Nola published a paper with New America on anti-racism as foreign policy. She was recently named one of the top 50 leaders in national security and foreign affairs by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS) and Diversity in National Security (DINSN). She is the Director of the West Coast chapter of Women of Color Advancing Peace and Security (WCAPS) and sits on several boards including, the Women’s Caucus for the International Studies Association communications team (WCIS), Foreign Policy board for American Political Science Association (APSA) and ISA West and is an alumnus of the WestExec Advisors mentoring program. As a member of the Pacific Council on International Policy (PCIC), Nola works as an Ops Coordinator to help resettle Afghan allies with Evacuate Our Allies (EOA), is a policy advocate for the Afghan Adjustment Act and is a mentor for the PCIC Amplify Program. Nola has over ten years of experience working in Diversity, Equity, Inclusion and Accessibility (DEIA) and is a proud New Orleans native, vegan-adjacent, dog mom, yogi and hiker. Nola’s traveled extensively, conducted research in West Africa and Central America on the intersections of terrorism, religion, gender, crisis and conflict. Nola holds degrees from UCLA, Harvard Divinity School and USC and is a regular guest on MSNBC and the Black News Channel (BNC) discussing foreign policy and national security-related issues, particularly Russia and Ukraine.