Viola Gienger (@ViolaGienger) is a Washington-based freelance writer and editor on U.S. foreign and defense policy, international security, and democracy development. She is Washington Editor for Just Security, an online forum on national and international security based at New York University School of Law. She previously served as senior editor/writer at the U.S. Institute of Peace in Washington, where she worked on issues related to preventing, managing and resolving violent conflict, including gender and religion, and conducted research and program strategy work on the Ukraine/Russia crisis. Her extensive newsroom experience includes covering the State Department and the Pentagon for Bloomberg News.

Gienger lived and worked for seven years in the former Soviet Union, Eastern Europe and the Balkans, managing training programs and consulting for independent media in transition, and as a freelance journalist. She has reported from more than 30 countries, including in the Middle East and Asia, and appears as a guest commentator and moderator in television, radio, and podcasts. Her freelance work includes guest national security editor at The Cipher Brief, and writing published in Ozy, the Atlantic Council’s Ukraine Alert, the Chicago Tribune, Newhouse’s Religion News Service, the Washington Post, the New York Times, and Al-Monitor.