Cole Blum is a second-year master's student at the Jackson School, where his research interests include geopolitics, national security, human rights, and democracy. While at Jackson, Cole has held an internship on the Geostrategy team at the Eurasia Group and a fellowship in the Office of the Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for European and NATO Affairs at the Pentagon. Before Yale, he spent more than two years on the advocacy team at Human Rights First (HRF), where he conducted research and advocacy on a wide range of national security and foreign policy issues, including ending endless war, closing Guantanamo, and mitigating civilian harm from U.S. military operations. Prior to joining Human Rights First, Cole worked in government relations at a political consulting firm called Subject Matter and at a nonprofit trade association, and he held internships at the Washington Institute for Near East Policy and the U.S. House Foreign Affairs Committee. Cole graduated Phi Beta Kappa with Highest Distinction from the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in 2018 with a double major in peace, war, and defense and political science.