Prior to joining BGS, Elissa was an Operations Research Analyst in the Office of the Secretary of Defense, Cost Assessment and Program Evaluation (CAPE), where she oversaw the Department of Defense’s science and technology budget. In that role, she conducted analysis and made investment recommendations to senior defense leaders on issues including directed energy, technology prototyping, and microelectronics. Previously, Elissa was the Special Assistant to the Director of CAPE. In that role, she directly supported the review of billions of dollars in programmatic decisions to produce the Fiscal Year 2024 and 2025 Future Years Defense Programs.
Elissa joined CAPE in 2020 as a Presidential Management Fellow. In 2021, she was detailed to serve on the Secretary of Defense’s China Task Force. She also co-led the missile defense portfolio in CAPE and contributed to the 2022 Missile Defense Strategy. Additionally, she served as a Legislative Fellow in the office of Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin, where she led or contributed to over a dozen amendments to the 2023 NDAA.
Elissa began her career as a regional specialist. She managed the North Africa program at the Atlantic Council where she focused on politics and security in Libya and Tunisia. She was also a Program Officer at Strategic Capacity Group where she led a State Department grant on security sector reform in Libya and worked closely with the UN Support Mission in Libya.
Elissa received her BA from Tufts University and her MA from the Fletcher School of Law and Diplomacy at Tufts University. She is a recipient of the Office of the Secretary of Defense Exceptional Civilian Service Award and the Office of the Secretary of Defense Award for Excellence. She is the co-author of “The Promise – and Limits – of Stabilization through Local Governance in Libya” in Federalism and Decentralization in the Contemporary Middle East and North Africa (Cambridge University Press 2023).
